Quebec filmmakers say they're starved for Telefilm funding
Last Updated: Thursday, June 22, 2006 | 11:22 AM ET
CBC Arts
The Quebec film industry urgently needs a $20-million injection of government money to help finance film projects already in development, the producer of an Oscar-winning film says.
Denise Robert, who produced the Oscar-winning Denys Arcand film Barbarian Invasions, was responding to a complaint made Thursday by Telefilm Canada that there are insufficient funds available for the Quebec industry.
Describing the situation as "difficult" for both the agency and the industry, the federal film-financing agency said it has only $11 million to allocate to French-language films annually. About $4 million of the budget is not yet allocated and the agency has 32 Quebec projects to consider requesting a total of $52 million.
Oscar winner Denys Arcand has had to cut the budget of his next film.
On June 15, the agency announced it had funded just seven films in Quebec, two English and five in French, so far.
Robert says Quebec filmmakers are victims of their own success.
"The Quebec film industry is very healthy. The audience share has been last year, I think, around 27 per cent," Robert said in an interview with CBC Radio.
"This year, because of a lack of films and a lack of money, we're down to eight per cent. And the consequence of that is that audiences who like going to see films will no longer have access to Quebec films. They'll be seeing, then, American films."
Banner year
Last year was a banner year for French-language films in Quebec, with domestic films getting more than 26 per cent of the box office, up from 21 per cent in 2004. The success of films such as C.R.A.Z.Y, Aurore and The Rocket helped power ticket sales.
That compares with English-Canadian films, whose share of the domestic box office fell to 1.2 per cent in 2005 from 1.6 per cent in 2004.
Telefilm gave Arcand's latest film, l'Age des Tenebres, $2.1 million, though its producers had asked for more. It was one of only two Quebec-produced films to get a substantial allocation this year. The other is Bernard Emond's Contre toute espèrance.
Robert says Arcand has had to cut the $9-million budget on his film by $1.5 million as a result.
L'Age des Tenebres, starring Marc Lebreche, is co-produced with France; filming will start in September.
Other films receiving funding include Le bar, mon frère le juif, a Morocco-France-Canada production; L'Infiltré, directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard; and, in English, Restless, directed by Amos Kolleck and Prom Wars.
Telefilm has a total of about $93 million to allocate through the Canada feature film fund to projects across the country. Under new rules established two years ago, funding is meant to go to films with the greatest chance of commercial success.
"Given the many projects in French, our goal is to be fair while supporting the best projects, and this leads to difficult decisions. We have to make choices, and as much as possible we try to maintain a diversity of voices and subjects in films with budgets of all sizes," director Michel Pradier said in a statement.
