Early September 1991: The Toronto Festival of Festivals finds successful television director Gerald Ciccoritti ‘very depressed’. He hasn’t done a feature since 1984’s Psycho Girls (budget, $15,000; schedule, nine days; made with the help of friends), and decides to ‘go home again’ by making a low-budget movie. ‘No one was ever going to see it – I didn’t care how good it was or how bad it was.’ He needs the therapy.

Scouring material he has at hand nets 45 pages of an incomplete novel, Paris, France by Tom Walmsley. Ciccoritti calls friends who will do the film for ‘fun’. The budget, about $100,000 bankrolled by Ciccoritti, is a small price to regain artistic vision.

Ciccoritti approaches Alliance, where he is a member of the ‘mutual admiration society’, to distribute. His reasoning: ‘If they kick in some money and it’s good – they make a buck. If it’s a piece of shit (they’re) only out 50 grand, which is… a lunch.’

Alliance’s ‘head of development for everything’ Steven DeNure takes the idea to Robert Lantos. Lantos reads the 45 pages and says, ‘Don’t do it this way; it’s a terrific idea and it should be done big.’

But this is Ciccoritti’s film, his baby. Lantos says do it big, Ciccoritti doesn’t want to. They talk – big, little, big, little.

Ciccoritti’s afraid it will be done for all the wrong reasons, that it won’t be his gritty little film, that it will lose its ‘spark, its freedom of expression… It wasn’t that it was going to become an Alliance production and Robert was going to have his mitts all over it,’ but Ciccoritti doesn’t want to make compromises. He says no to Alliance.

October 1991: Ciccoritti’s window is closing, he loses some of his cast members. The film, had he listened to the Nike commercials and decided to just do it, would have been shot by now. Ciccoritti decides to put everything on hold, ‘maybe next year…’

November 1991: Ciccoritti is becoming more depressed, ‘whining like a crybaby’. Lantos calls: he really wants to do it. Ciccoritti says, ‘Screw it. Alright, let’s do it.’ It has become more important to do ‘something, rather than do it that way’. Lightshow Productions (Ciccoritti) and Alliance hammer out a deal.

December 1991: Approach agencies for funding; there may be trouble because there’s a lot of sex. Aim for a spring ’92 shoot.

Spring 1992: Meetings with agencies, sex okay. Script being written, cast and crew rounded up. Everyone likes the script – no one will commit to it. Ciccoritti takes other work. Production is pushed to fall.

June 1992: Agencies give the green light. The budget: $1,237,500.

September 1992: The Festival of Festivals brings Leslie Hope from l.a. and the lead goes to her. Crew and remaining cast assembled. Many meetings at the Rivoli Cafe. Money coming in from agencies. Ciccoritti has no idea how much, ‘Don’t ask me figures.’ Telefilm Canada $600,000. Undisclosed amounts from the Ontario Film Development Corporation and Alliance. Five producers on board.

October/November 1992: Shoot 25 days of ‘the smoothest production I’ve ever worked on. No bumps or grinds, no ups or downs,’ says Ciccoritti.

December 1992: Rough cut.

Spring 1993: Picture locked. Voice-over recording. Sound mix. Music by John McCarthy, (Sheila’s younger brother) written.

May 1993: Final print

Fall 1993: Ciccoritti has exorcised the depression demons, ‘shed an old skin and become a nice new glistening snake bursting with ideas and life’. His turn for the Festival of Festivals. Paris, France premiers in the Perspective Canada program.