Playing the blame game about film industry

Peter Howell
Toronto Star

The first item of business was getting our heads around the title: "Don't Blame Canada."

Organizers of the SXSW Film Festival slapped that handle on the Canadian film panel I'd been invited to moderate in Austin, Tex. last week. Joining me were Toronto filmmakers Ron Mann, Reg Harkema and Rick Caine, plus Jennifer Price, a trade commissioner for the Canadian Consulate General in L.A.

We all wondered: Don't blame Canada for what? Pity Canada would be more like it.

The title played on the old South Park gag about a foul-mouthed Canuck movie called Asses of Fire, which starts a border war with inflamed Americans. If only our movies really did have that much impact.

Our national film industry is not in the greatest of shape at the moment, even in Quebec where the distinct society has forged a distinct film culture. The Canadian dollar is no longer the bargain it once was, the lingering affects of SARS still haunts Toronto, and American states are much more aggressive about offering tax incentives to convince their homegrown filmmakers to stay home.

Worse still is the indifference by Canadians towards their own films. Hands up all you who watched this year's Genie Awards.

Price, who focuses on international business development for Canadian culture, brought with her some depressing statistics on how the country's film industry has fared in recent years, especially in terms of Canadian support:

Even with the release last year of such genuine domestic success stories as Bon Cop, Bad Cop and Trailer Park Boys, Canadian films accounted for just 1.8 per cent of the English-language box office in Canada. The rest is mostly American.

In 2004-05, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the production value of Canadian features totalled $253 million, spread over 116 films. That's a decrease of 31 per cent by dollar value. That $253 million would pay for 2 ½ Hollywood blockbusters, most of which are filmed outside Canada.

The news is not all grim. The Canadian film industry remains highly prized both within and off our shores for its creativity and talent. And big American productions like Hairspray and The Incredible Hulk have chosen to film here. But there's the unmistakeable truth that Canadian movies are almost invisible in this country, because most Canadians neither watch nor even understand their own domestic offerings.

Price told a bleakly humorous anecdote about renting a Canadian film once in a small B.C. video store and finding it racked under "imports." And yet on our panel there were three Canuck directors who are enjoying success at home and abroad, albeit success they've had to work hard to get.

Mann was at SXSW showing a spanking new print of his first film Imagine the Sound, his 1981 documentary about the free jazz movement and its singular artists. Not many filmmakers get the satisfaction of being feted stateside for their debut work. Imagine the Sound will also be honoured in Toronto with a special screening May 10 at Cinematheque Ontario and it's also due out on DVD.

Harkema was in Austin with Monkey Warfare, his black comedy about sobered former revolutionaries. It won a prize at last year's Toronto International Film Festival and will soon be on DVD.

Caine still had applause ringing in his ears for the world premiere at SXSW of Manufacturing Dissent, his documentary with wife Debbie Melnyk about the dubious journalistic tactics of firebrand filmmaker Michael Moore. Caine is hopeful of distribution deals in Canada and the U.S.

All three filmmakers have no illusions about their status in the Canadian consciousness. They know more people would rather stay home and watch American Idol on TV than see a Canadian film.

"You can make a little bit of a success to a certain level but you're never going to be the breakout big superstar," Harkema said.

"Particularly in Toronto, you're likely to live in a cold, Parkdale slum apartment for the rest of your life, pursuing your art until you wither away and die. And you know, maybe someone digs it up out of your trunk in your attic and goes, `Wow, why didn't we celebrate this guy when he was alive?'"

That reads more depressing than it sounded at the time. Harkema was smiling when he said it. I think. Mann, who has made 10 more films since Imagine the Sound, took the longer and more upbeat view.

"I think it's hard being a filmmaker, period. There's never enough money to do what you want, but Canada is incredible in the sense that there are funding organizations for anything, and you can pre-sell your films to Canadian television and you can get grants, you can get development money for projects.

"I was more entrepreneurial. I didn't just wait for a phone call, I just did it myself. The reason you make a movie is you intensely love something or you intensely dislike something and that drives you."

Yes, there is seed money, Caine chipped in, but it's not always readily available – and funders often don't have a clue about what you're pitching them. He told a story about trying to get the NFB to back The Frank Truth, his 2001 exposé about Ottawa's satirical Frank magazine.

"I'll never forget how we had a meeting with a woman there who was very pleasant and very generous. But at the end of the day it was sort of like, `Wow, the loaded political content in this film! We wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole! Oh, and besides, we want to be involved with theatrical films!'

"So she was the first person I called when the Toronto International Film Festival accepted the film, because it screened at the NFB screening room at TIFF. Hey! It's showing! Come and see it!"

Harkema advanced the perhaps revolutionary view that maybe we should all stop fretting about how much Canadians support their own films.

"I think it's a little misguided to create a box office goal when, as with any country in the world, all their screens are inundated with Hollywood product," he said.

"And it's my feeling that they should look at some other kind of goal, especially in light of the fact that screens themselves are disappearing. Just last year in Toronto, five repertory screens that would have showed Canadian films just disappeared. One of them reopened and actually showed my film as its premiere, thank God, but still, we were down net four. I think they should look more towards what the films are doing in terms of markets globally."

Indeed. Canadian films were front and centre at this year's SXSW fest. And the Canuck film panel had more attendees than you might get for a similar panel in Toronto. No wonder the city's unofficial motto is "Keep Austin Weird."