By David Kolbusz
Members of the Ottawa film community have a wide variety of opinions about the recent review of Canadian feature film policy announced by Canadian Heritage Minister Sheila Copps in early February.
The review is designed to identify measures enabling the Canadian film industry to position itself well into the next century.
The Department of Canadian Heritage has released a discussion paper on the policy that has been sent out to industry representatives from the creative, production, exhibition and broadcasting sectors of Canadian film.
Derek Diorio of Diorio Productions says the whole business of film-making must be changed to achieve success.
“The biggest problem is that few people control most of the money,” says Diorio.
“If you don’t fit the model, you lose out. Our funding doesn’t come from Telefilm Canada. We have to find other ways to accumulate funding from private backers.”
Michael Mastronardi of Hyde Park Media Productions believes that the problem lies mainly with the cinema of English-speaking Canada.
“French-Canadian cinema has been self-sustaining for a while,” says Mastronardi. “It has developed its own reputation and audience within the province of Quebec.”
He feels that change should be initiated by combining the two types of films produced in English Canada.
“There is the film that receives critical reception, and there is the film that is made to crack the U.S. box office,” says Mastronardi. “Both the critically praised and the big budget films make little money. The prestige pictures have no funds behind them and the larger pictures are often not of a higher quality. We need to fuse quality with money.”
Mastronardi believes Canada needs “true producers” — people who instinctively love movies, but who are also shrewd entrepreneurs.
Chris Faulkner, assistant director for the Carleton University film studies program feels that there is ample film-making talent in Canada, but the promotion and distribution system is weak.
“Ottawa itself has 12 American films on 50 different screens. The one Canadian film showing is Mon Oncle Antoine which is over 25 years old,” says Faulkner. “We make very good films, but nobody gets to see them. There are probably more Canadian films shown in New York art-house theatres than there are in the city of Toronto.”
To address this problem, Copps wants the Canadian film industry to produce more commercially-viable films that will be embraced in the U.S. and other foreign markets, as well as in Canada, such as Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter. Egoyan has been nominated for best director at this year’s Academy Awards later this month.
But Faulkner feels that unless Canadian film-makers start selling themselves to the U.S.-based Motion Picture Producers Association, little overall change can take place.
“We have to show initiative,” says Faulkner. “To the United States, we’re like the 51st state. We have to make films that highlight Canadian identity, but in a context that Americans will understand. We must deal with the Canadian subjects that the U.S. is familiar with. If that means making films about Mounties and snow, then so be it.”
Jacques Lefebvre, Copps’ senior communications advisor, says that consultations are ongoing.
“We expect to obtain most of this (information) by April,” says Lefebvre. “Those who involve themselves will give the ministry some idea of what direction to take in establishing a new policy.”