There's a great article on indieWIRE about "a movie made with 100 percent creative freedom, beyond the constraints of the studio system, that found its way there anyway":

In late April, they started showing it to programmers. "We screen hundreds of films between April and June," said Toronto's artistic director, Cameron Bailey. "‘Anomalisa' was like nothing else we saw. I remember coming out of our screening room feeling shaken and altered somehow, like somebody had peeled a layer of skin off. The film is so attuned to the sensitivities most of us have but never reveal. I wasn't sure how other people would respond to it, but I knew I loved it." (Source)