The Franco-Ontarian film La Sacrée is slated for release next summer. (La Sacrée/Facebook)

Filming has wrapped for La Sacrée, the first feature comedy to be made in Ontario entirely in French and almost entirely with government funds.

The crew celebrated the end of the trail-blazing production, which was shot in the Ottawa area, on Wednesday night.

Producer Mark Chatel said the project was difficult to get off the ground because so few French-language films have been produced in the province.

He said he had to compete against major English feature films, plus navigate a complicated funding process of largely anglophone juries, to get the $1.2 million he needed to pay for the production.

"There were moments when I thought I would just abandon everything," said Chatel. "There is no history behind us. We had to translate all the documents, the scripts, you can imagine. Will it be lost in translation — all the humour of the film?"

La Sacrée tells the story of conman François, played by Marc Marans, who must find a cure for his infertility in order to marry a rich entrepreneur. In his search, he returns to his home town in Ontario and opens a microbrewery.

'There were moments when I thought I would just abandon everything.'— Mark Chatel, producer

Franco-Ontarian musician Damien Robitaille stars as his childhood best friend, and Geneviève Bilodeau stars as Angélique, François's first love.

The film is a co-production of Balestra Productions and Denise Robert, the Genie-award-winning producer of some of Quebec's most successful films including The Barbarian Invasions and The Rocket.

Chatel also had help from Ottawa-Vanier MPP Madeleine Meilleur who advocated on behalf of the project. The film received funding from Telefilm Canada's Official Languages Activities Program.

More attention for Franco-Ontarian films needed: industry

A lot is riding on the film, according to Roch Brunette, the head of the Ottawa-Gatineau Film and Television Development Corporation.

He said there is an impressive amount of French-language television production going on in the Ottawa region, but not feature films.

'Is the jury going to understand the language properly in order to read the script and get those angles...?'— Roch Brunette, Ottawa-Gatineau Film and Television Development Corporation

Brunette said there's a risk of filmmakers in Ontario taking their ventures to Quebec where it is easier for a French-language film to get funding.

One way to prevent that, he suggested, was for Ontario funding agencies to put more bilingual members on their juries.

"Is the jury going to understand the language properly in order to read the script and get those angles, those little jokes, those stories that are understood by the French community?" asked Brunette.

"If you do have that kind of person on the jury who will help the other [members] of the jury, then yes that could work. If you don't have that element on the jury, that could be a problem."

La Sacrée is scheduled for release in the summer of 2011.