Two Cultures: One Cheque—the real hollywood north
The two solitudes are alive and well in the Canadian film industry. We explore the English/French divide in terms of audience, authorship, attitude—and l’argent
BY Richard Poplak
Illustration by Evan Munday
Upper vs. Lower Canada. French vs. English. A country divided. While Quebec has a booming indigenous film industry, English Canada can boast nothing of the sort. The contrast is stark and in many respects this is the age-old Canadian cultural dialectic in another context. There exists a significant and very real disparity when it comes to the two regions’ indigenous box-office receipts. Thus, the riddle: Why do Québécois filmgoers purchase so many tickets for local films, while English-Canadian filmmakers cannot find an audience?
The term “Canadian film” should not be such a non sequitur and these disparities should not run so deep. The cheques underwriting almost every Canadian feature film are requisitioned at the same office—Telefilm. This is the federal government agency tasked with funding the Canadian film, television and music industries. Formerly known as the Canadian Film Development Corporation, Telefilm was established by a Canadian Heritage bill in 1967. Through the agency, the Government of Canada acts as a partner to Canadian media producers by way of financial investments or various other resources at the agency’s disposal.
Telefilm’s flagship program is the Canadian Feature Film Fund (CFFF). Unlike Canadian music and television (which has CRTC regulations guaranteeing a percentage of Canadian content on the airwaves), Canadian film has no such protection. It must battle tough guys like Spider-Man, Batman and Tom Cruise for movie screens, and then tussle with them again for DVD shelf space at the local Blockbuster. Canadian film exists in a viciously competitive free market economy; if it wants an audience, it has to earn it. Telefilm acknowledges this. A 2004 revision of the agency’s mandate (Bill C-18) implies that the marker of success can only be reflected by how large an audience watches its films, the only reasonable measure of which is box-office results. Thus, the agency’s stated goal is five percent of indigenous box-office receipts, to be achieved over a five-year period. There is a considerable way to go before this marker becomes remotely achievable.
However daunting the task, there are clear precedents, and one doesn’t have to look as far afield as Australia or Sweden or the UK. Quebec film’s 2005 box office as of September 9, 2005 amounted to 12.4 percent of provincial box-office receipts, which compares favourably to similarly sized non-English regions elsewhere in the world. In English Canada, this figure becomes a woeful 1.6 percent. Given that Telefilm is Canadian feature film, they must account for a large measure of this disparity. And the numbers tell an interesting story.
The CFFF has an annual budget of $100 million. The agency is mandated by Bill C-18 to divide all funds and resources into two-thirds English projects, one-third French. According to Telefilm’s own annual reports, 37.5 percent of feature film funding has been disseminated to French filmmakers since 1997. Given that Quebec has barely a quarter of Canada’s population, and even factoring in the Francophone population elsewhere in the country, this doesn’t seem to balance. This percentage was especially lopsided in 2003, when—as Ralph Holt, Telefilm’s feature films sector head of English operations, puts it—“success in Quebec was so great, it seemed a shame not to support it.” (That year, Charles Binamé’s Séraphin: un homme et son péché grossed $9.2 million in Quebec alone.) Holt insists that the imbalance has been redressed, but a glance at Telefilm’s summer press releases doesn’t entirely back that up. In June of this year, CFFF funding proper was awarded to 10 English and four French language productions. One of the English language films was from Quebec—Joshua Dorey’s The Point. However, in round two of CFFF funding, eight English-Canadian films and four French Canadian films were greenlit. One English language film was from Quebec (Jeffrey Blatt’s Still Life) and another from acclaimed Québécois director Yves Simoneau, he of Pouvoir Intime fame. Crunching the digits, it is hard not to identify a slight sway towards Québécois cinema in Telefilm’s approval process.
The idea of a distinct society existing within our borders, a cultural biosphere that requires its own special tending, has dominated Canadian political and intellectual thought for years. That other Canadian preoccupation—our relationship with and fixation on the behemoth to the south—is the second important thread in the weave that is the modern-day Canadian cultural institution. Telefilm is no exception. The official line has always been that Quebec is a unique situation and its linguistic distinction places it in extreme danger from the cultural assault coming at it from all sides. As far as popular culture is concerned, this has ultimately played out as an advantage. “I see Quebec as similar to the UK,” says Holt. “It is a defined, separate regional space dominated by a large urban cultural centre.” Not so long ago, comparing Quebec to the UK was apostasy. Now, it’s common sense. And as for Quebec being culturally bombarded by product from English Canada—at this point in time, the notion seems almost quaint.
In Quebec, years of language and cultural protection, and aggressive promotion of culture by provincial institutions such as Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC), have paid off. As in Mexico and Italy, popular soap operas and TV shows breed a local star system. Telefilm’s head of French operations and Quebec office Michel Pradier notes that, “in Quebec, you have talk shows and magazines that promote these national stars.” The same cannot be said for the rest of the country. Exhibitor Relations, a tracker of Hollywood box-office results, considers Canada as part of the domestic US, so closely do the box-office numbers mirror one another. In other English-speaking nations—Australia and UK by way of example—this is not necessarily the case. A fundamental shift in cultural policy is required, a shift that must acknowledge that English Canada is the unique circumstance.
Canada’s cultural elite has always believed that the best way to combat the unremitting glut of Hollywood schlock was to make difficult, auteur-driven pictures. In a word: art. The niche Telefilm, its intellectual adherents and its cultural partners identified (this is especially true of the English language market) was the festival and art house circuit, where the rarefied crowd would appreciate something meatier than the usual multiplex fare. After two decades, Canada’s cultural policy makers have identified that this is something of a betrayal of Telefilm’s mandate. These films did not speak to Canadian audiences, nor did they significantly raise our international profile in the way that a film like Trainspotting did for the UK, or Shine did for Australia. Meanwhile, in Quebec, culture was not being imposed from above, but rather was growing organically. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, films like La Florida, Ding et Dong le Film and Cruising Bar—hardly works of art—were packing theatres and “speaking” to the locals. Slowly but surely, the groundwork was laid for a multifaceted film industry—low comedy, sombre epics and angsty art films alike—and a burgeoning indigenous film culture was taking its first tentative steps.
This difference in approach can be whittled down to one key aspect: corporate structure. Although Telefilm is ostensibly one coherent organization, it is divided into regions with varying levels of autonomy. Head Office is in Montreal, while English operations are headquartered in Toronto. There are regional offices in Vancouver and Halifax, and an international office in Paris. In these days of corporate synergy and homogeneity, it is difficult to justify an organizational structure like this. Mostly, because it doesn’t work. English projects are filtered through regional offices, and then sent to the Toronto office for final approval. Pradier admits that there is a distinct advantage for French projects by running them through one streamlined office. In English Canada, he points out, “there is a very diversified population. To get a blockbuster from coast to coast is nearly impossible.” This statement doesn’t take into consideration the dozens of films every year (and not just Hollywood product) that attract audiences from all points along the Trans-Canada. Telefilm bureaucrats tacitly understand this. “We’re taking a really serious look at how the marketplace works,” says Holt. Is this statement an acknowledgement that the current system is untenable, and the possibility of a nationwide smash hit not nearly as remote as Pradier would have us believe?
The greater success of the Quebec regional office appears to have led to an emphasis on marketing French productions within the Telefilm system. Lise Corriveau, Telefilm’s director of international festivals and markets, insists that Telefilm places no bias on French-Canadian productions, but does acknowledge, “We do the events that the industry wants.” Like most Telefilm offices in this new era of accountability, Ms. Corriveau’s department must produce results. Canada’s lone major international festival award at the time of publishing was Sébastien Rose’s La Vie avec mon pére, at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Czech Republic. According to Ms. Corriveau, Telefilm officially supports 36 festivals and sends out applications to dozens more. Over the past few years, Québécois films have dominated. When many of these festivals send out invitations, it becomes a case of market demand, and the market demands more French-Canadian product than English. It does, however, become a question of expense and resources, and when limited marketing dollars are expended in selling Canadian culture abroad by the agency tasked with making films by Canadians, for Canadians, does this not represent a misalignment of priorities?
Undoubtedly, in a world where culture is increasingly globalized and where international and local markets are becoming more and more amorphous, Canadian culture deserves a champion. When the intention is to win over local audiences, festival prizes in Eastern Europe are unlikely to sell tickets. This is, simply, a market reality, and nowhere is it better reflected than in exhibitors’ reluctance to provide screens for English-Canadian films. Distribution and exhibition—the real meat and potatoes of the film industry—provide the starkest contrast between the vigour of the Quebec film industry and the enervation of its English-Canadian counterpart. “When a distributor comes to an exhibitor with a Quebec film, it is a very attractive product,” notes Pradier. This is no exaggeration. In its third week of release, Horloge Biologique (Ricardo Trogi) was playing on an astounding 43 screens in and around Montreal and the Eastern Townships. Summer blockbusters like Fantastic Four (Tim Story) were rolled out on a similar number of screens in the region, which suggests that the distributors and exhibitors see no difference in market potential between Quebec-made film and Hollywood product. No English language Canadian film of the last few years can boast such an impressive theatre count, while this has become de rigueur in Quebec.
It takes enormous confidence in a film to release it on a significant number of screens, and this confidence is missing in English Canada. Distributors and exhibitors don’t have the belief, or more important, the precedent, to make these leaps of faith. In Quebec, according to Pradier, there is “a synchronicity of writers, directors, distributors, exhibitors [and funding agencies].” In the rest of Canada, the risk—for both the distributor and the exhibitor—is too great. According to Telefilm’s own numbers, the agency spends an average of $320,000 in marketing costs per film (this includes market and festival material—and is not restricted to first-run theatrical release), which can amount to as much as 75 percent of a film’s marketing budget. This is, by industry standards, less than bubkes. Without a concentrated marketing push, a film simply disappears. In Quebec, between Telefilm and the distributors, Pradier notes that a $1.5 million marketing campaign is becoming a regular occurrence—and this for a market of barely six million people. When asked what role the French Telefilm office plays in deciding that a submission is successful, he states, “First is the script and director. Second is the marketing component. The marketing component is vital.”
C.R.A.Z.Y. (Jean-Marc Vallée), the recent Quebec box-office phenomenon, grossed over $5 million in 14 weeks of release, according to Cineac, Quebec’s box-office tracker. This is proof positive that in an industry where, according to screenwriter William Goldman, “nobody knows anything,” the French Telefilm office knows more than most. Here, the fulcrum of director, project and marketing component has worked to a T. With a snappy script, an established director (that’s director, not auteur), a dazzling trailer cut to the very expensive strains of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” and a ’70s coming of age/coming out storyline that resonates with Quebecers, C.R.A.Z.Y. had every chance of becoming a hit. And a hit it has become. The French Telefilm bureaucrats understood the market, and what’s more, along with TVA (the film’s distributor), how to market to that market. And thus, the enviable “synchronicity” Pradier speaks of.
This synchronicity is nowhere in evidence in English Canada. The catalyst, the spark necessary to jumpstart a successful film project, is the script concept. Telefilm is inundated with hundreds of applications every year. In a film culture that has traditionally supported auteur driven pictures, with little or no concern for bums on seats, English Canada has what can be described as a “producer problem.” “We don’t commission projects here,” points out David Forget, Telefilm’s head of operations for Ontario and Nunavut. Producers initiate the projects. Because Telefilm policy has long existed outside of a results-based universe, too few producers are schooled in the realities of the industry—delivering a great proposal with real market potential. One hundred years of cinema industry reality is being force-fed to English-Canadian producers in a matter of five years. Hence, the missteps are legion.
The talent issue is a contentious one and both the English-Canadian and Quebec offices of Telefilm vigorously insist that there is plenty of filmic aptitude in English Canada. There is no doubt, however, that brain drain is an issue. While the language barrier may prevent many (but not all) Quebec artists from making the move, English Canadians have no such trouble in fleeing south for bigger pay cheques, better budgets and, of course, warmer weather. “It would be great to call Cronenberg’s new film [A History of Violence] Canadian. The same goes for Paul Haggis’s Crash. We can’t,” says Holt. Both films are Hollywood-produced and Hollywood-financed, while the filmmakers are famously Canadian. There is, thankfully, hope. In Holt’s office, sitting on a filing cabinet behind him, is corporal evidence of what could be English-Canadian film’s turning point—a Trailer Park Boys baseball cap. The Trailer Park Boys phenomenon is encouraging in several ways. First, it represents a truly Canadian pop-cultural experience that has resonated with audiences across the country. It is a successful TV show that will translate—and Telefilm is banking on this—into a successful feature film, Trailer Park Boys: The Big Dirty. It involves serious expatriate talent in the form of director and producer Ivan Reitman—he of Ghostbusters fame—who provided what Holt describes as “significant partnership, contacts and guidance.” It also, and perhaps most important, represents the fact that Telefilm has finally identified a niche that may just provide the golden key to the audiences long missing from the English-Canadian equation.
“Telefilm,” says Holt, “is paralleling the whole independent film movement.” As independent film becomes an entrenched addendum to the mainstream film industry, its audience is growing exponentially. This, Telefilm is hoping, is what will happen to English-Canadian movies. The new independent film does not eschew stars—it offers them new, exciting opportunities for advancing their careers. It does not ignore genre—rather, it acts as a form of genre Viagra, vivifying and revitalizing. Indie film marketing campaigns are often more ingenious and entertaining than the films themselves. By offering ex-pat Canadian stars and producers interesting artistic opportunities, by pairing them with Canadian writers and directors, Canadian film has the opportunity to become an exciting creative universe.
Quebec has a contained independent film market flourishing within the province, one that has enjoyed significant, enviable audience support for the past 10 years. What English Canada can learn from its Francophone confreres is that an understanding of your market is the very first step in conquering it. As Holt puts it, “Quebec filmmakers and Quebec audiences are engaged in a conversation.” For English-Canadian filmmakers to also be part of that conversation is an enormous challenge, but it is not outside the bounds of possibility. Federal cultural policy wonks need to rejig their thinking—and their budgeting—to better represent the enormous challenges facing English-Canadian popular culture in general, and feature film in particular. Quebec is, in this case, not the distinct part of the Canadian equation. It is the established business model.
The Canadian Heritage mandate, “From Script to Screen: New Policy Directions for Canadian Feature Film,” puts it with uncharacteristic poetry: “Film is a powerful means of providing snapshots of moments, places and faces in Canadian history.” If so, our national photo album is woefully threadbare. Our cultural legacy has been weakened by years of poor cultural policy, and Telefilm must shoulder a large amount of the responsibility. The agency needs to be held accountable for the decisions it makes and the films it greenlights on taxpayers’ behalf. While the box office is not the only indicator of a successful film, at the very least it is a measuring stick that represents whether a film has identified with an audience. Let’s hope those Trailer Park Boys baseball caps become as ubiquitous a Canadian fashion accessory as hockey jerseys and that the English Telefilm office can start mirroring the success of its counterpart in La Belle Province.
