Quips notes 16.11.04

While involved in the usual amount of after-screening nosing around that I normally refer to as researching a movie before writing my review, it was interesting to read what one local independent filmmaker said about something he'd learned in film school. Apparently, the prevailing mindset passed down to students is that Canadian films simply can't get made without government funding. Frankly, I consider that notion to probably be one of the main reasons why relatively few homegrown full-length movies are made and released annually in this country.

There are several movie production studios in existence across this country. According to the Canadian Film and Television Production Association's (http://www.cftpa.ca) published 2003 guidebook listings, there were about four hundred registered production studios in operation last year. Many of which cite feature films as being one aspect of their litany of services. Alliance Atlantis (http://www.allianceatlantis.com), Lions Gate Entertainment (http://www.lionsgatestudios.com), Universal Studios Canada (http://www.universalstudioscanada.com), director Atom Egoyan's Ergo Film Arts, and TVA Films are all in there. So are many, many other apparently medium to small-sized production studios. Thirty-five pages worth in all.

Flipping over to the same guide's sixty-two paged, money-related section - half of which is made up of public funding organizations that do all appear to be either federal or provincial government agencies - a quarter of the remaining half that doesn't cover various tax credits does in fact list private funding for Canadian feature films. There aren't many, though. The $100,000 Astral Media The Harold Greenberg Fund (http://www.themovienetwork.ca, http://www.astral.com), and the annual $35,000 Theatrical Feature Film Development Program (http://www.ipf.ca) from Cogeco are a couple from the handful of private sources listed that aren't primarily related to television series funding. So, it's basically true. Without one or more government hand outs, Canadian movies simply won't get made if they require a big budget.

So, what's the alternative? Smaller budgets, perhaps?

Well, when you consider that a good chunk of monies required also include promotion and distribution costs, that might not be a viable option. To use a slightly unfair example, it could very well be that there really aren't a lot of Canadian film producers in existence who could write a great script that makes a pile of cash someplace, which could then be pooled with available private investment, in order to afford making 'Reservoir Dogs' (1992). Quentin Tarantino did it, though. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservoir_Dogs). That movie went on to reportedly gross over $2 million. However, Tarantino isn't Canadian. He probably didn't go to film school in Canada. He likely didn't have the benefit of being taught to play by the established rules so that he could essencially go on filmmaker welfare if he wanted to get his picture made. Actor and 'Reservoir Dogs' star Harvey Keitel could have kept his investment in Tarantino's $1.2 million first movie, if it had been made north of the border, it seems. Or, maybe not.

The website http://www.canadacouncil.ca is the online face of one of the nation's acknowledged longtime piggybanks for filmmakers, The Canada Council for the Arts. Created by Parliament in 1957, the Canada Council is based here in Ottawa and has what they call The Media Arts Section that, according to its CFTPA blurb, "assist(s) independent artists working with media arts as a form of creative expression and to support experimentation with form, content or technology in a variety of genres". They specify artists as being either Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada working in film, video, new media and audio. Surprisingly, the Council merely offers up possible grants ranging from $3,000 to $60,000, depending on whether the applicant has a proven emerging, mid-career, established or independent standing. Not too much.

There's also the National Film Board of Canada (http://www.onf.ca), which apparently answers to the Government Film Commissioner, who reports to the Minister of Canadian Heritage; and the Cultural Industries Development Fund (http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca), established by the federal Department of Canadian Heritage and exists through the Business Development Bank of Canada. In other words, welcome to the jungle of bureaucracy. Abandon all hope, ye who enter...

All of this likely explains why the majority of Canadian moviegoers have probably seen far more imported flicks from the United States and abroad than those originating from our own country. I've merely scratched the surface of what it actually takes to get a finished script to several big screens in Canada, but it definitely seems as though there's no real viable infrastructure or - from the general moviegoer's perspective - a recognizably tangible English-language motion picture industry here to begin with.

Why? What's the hold up? The network and public interest must exist on some level. Beyond the local Art House and Indie Fest screenings, aired Wrap Party shmoozing and ads of vaguely recognizeable directors faces pontificating about how magnificent and poignant they - I mean - Canadian feature films really, really, truly are, honest. The workings do exist in part, if what little I've shared here is any indication. So, why aren't we seeing Canadian dramas, actioners, comedies and horror flicks being cranked out and widely released into Canadian movie theatres on a weekly or monthly basis alongside their American and other foreign counterparts? Sadly, I'm pretty sure what that independent local filmmaker mentioned - despite those thirty-five pages containing Canadian feature film studios - has already answered that question.

Thanks for checking in.