Toronto film festival: the UK Film Council's finest hour?

It's a recurring irony in Hollywood that when a studio boss gets fired, or a company goes bust, the slate of films they leave behind often turns out to be their most successful.

So perhaps it was inevitable, in the week John Woodward quit as chief executive of the condemned UK Film Council, that British cinema would make one of its strongest ever showings at the Toronto film festival. It's not just the sheer volume of British films unspooling – 29 features, including 13 backed by the UKFC – but the strength in depth.

Toronto is America's most important film festival, even though it takes place in Canada, because it serves as the unofficial launchpad for Oscar season. Slumdog Millionaire began its all-conquering campaign there two years ago.

Oscar tipsters are already predicting four British best picture nominees from this year's bumper Toronto crop: Tom Hooper's The King's Speech, Nigel Cole's Made In Dagenham, Mike Leigh's Another Year (all backed by the UKFC) and Danny Boyle's 127 Hours. Sylvain Chomet's Scottish-made The Illusionist should also figure in the animated category.

Toronto is also about breaking new talent. Submarine, the directing debut of IT Crowd actor Richard Ayoade, also funded by the UKFC, sold to the Weinsteins for a million dollars. Andrea Riseborough is the belle of the red carpet for her performances in Made In Dagenham, Brighton Rock and Never Let Me Go.

Even in Toronto's informal market, British projects are grabbing headlines. Judge Dredd 3D, to be directed by Pete Travis and produced by the UK's DNA Films, which also made Never Let Me Go, has racked up £20m of worldwide sales before shooting has even started.

The King's Speech received ovations not just from the easily-pleased Canadian public, but also from the much tougher press and industry crowd. Colin Firth plays a stuttering King George VI who needs the ministrations of an irascible Australian voice coach (Geoffrey Rush) before he can rise to the challenge of leading his country to war. Impersonating a British monarch is often a shortcut to Oscar glory, as Helen Mirren and Judi Dench can attest.

Perhaps more surprising, given a subject less obviously tailored to transatlantic tastes, is the enthusiastic reception for Made In Dagenham, about the female workers who struck for equal pay at the Ford factory in 1968. Cole has evidently managed to craft another feelgood ensemble comedy about plucky underdogs with universal appeal, in the vein of his previous Calendar Girls. Leading actress Sally Hawkins won a Golden Globe two years ago for Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky but missed out on an Oscar nomination. That wrong should be put right this year.

She's likely to be joined by Lesley Manville from Another Year. Leigh's heroines tend to do well in American awards – think Imelda Staunton, Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste – even if they never quite match that success again.

Tales are already circulating of people fainting at the intensity of 127 Hours, the true story of the American hiker caught in a rockfall who hacked off his own arm to free himself. It's not obviously British, but comes from the same creative team as Slumdog – Boyle, writer Simon Beaufoy and producer Christian Colson – with backing from Film4 and Pathé.

Indeed, the great strength of British cinema is often that it is unconstrained by narrow nationalism, as evidenced by several UKFC-backed films at Toronto. First Grader is the story of an 84-year-old former Mau Mau fighter who went back to primary school in Kenya. Africa United follows three Rwandan kids on a 3,000-mile trek to attend the World Cup in South Africa. West Is West, the sequel to East Is East, takes the dysfunctional Khan family back to the Punjab. Tracker is a co-production set in New Zealand, about a British soldier hunting a Maori fugitive. Cirkus Columbia is another Bosnian drama by Danis Tanovic.

Of course, there's more to creating a healthy British film industry than festival success, even when the festival is as significant as Toronto. Woodward can depart with quiet pride that his last harvest at the UKFC has proved so bountiful. But he's way too smart not also to feel a pang of disappointment at how dependent British cinema remains upon public subsidy for its success, and how little of the benefit actually flows back to British companies. Having decided that the UKFC is a luxury the nation can't afford, it's now up to the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to prove that he's got a better idea.