The fall

ritual

goes on

Montreal: With each new fall festival season, the film and television industry in Canada undertakes a ritual re-examination of its complex relationship with its neighbor to the south.

At a recent Montreal International Film, TV and Video Trade Symposium on ‘Canada, u.s. and Europe: Cooperation, Not Confrontation,’ the latter took the day with no less than two hours and 59 minutes of the three-hour program filled with heated words and invectives. In the session’s dying moments, moderator Francis Fox, a lawyer with Montreal law firm Martineau Walker, was obliged to call on panelists ‘to take a minute’ to suggest how the Canadian and European industries might co-operate with the u.s.

Canadian speakers at the Symposium called for the implementation of a quota system for films and video based on the successful experience of Canada’s broadcasting system, dismissing outright a new, more conciliatory u.s. attitude toward subsidies and quotas as a clever ploy to avoid potential legislative retaliation.

The Americans may have reason to worry, but they don’t have very much to left grab.

Panelists pointed out the u.s. has more than 95% of Canadian screen time, 70% to 90% of screens in France where 150 films are produced annually, and a similar hold on markets in Spain and once-proud Germany.

Reconsider position

Astral/Europe executive and Canadian coproducer Denis Heroux said this state of affairs, coupled with the failure of the American motion picture industry to defeat national subsidies and quotas at recent gatt talks, has led the u.s. to reconsider its strategic position.

‘They can’t beat us,’ he said, ‘so now they’re saying `Let’s co-operate.’ ‘

Heroux suggested the first step in co-operating with the u.s. was for the francophone panelists to speak English, adding mpaa chairman Jack Valenti’s philosophy ‘has always been one of real confrontation, and the push for free access.’

Myron Karlin, past president and ceo of the Motion Picture Export Association of America, countered by saying ‘the failure of national cinemas’ is due to their inability to produce popular movies for home audiences. ‘What counts in the entertainment business is a good story,’ he said.

Heroux said historically, Canada has built its production industry using quotas, subsidies and coproduction treaties to ensure survival. According to Heroux, Canada and Europe coproduced $250 million worth of programs last year.

Tom Berry, president of Allegro Films and vice-chair of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association, said Canadian distributors need an economic base – with the focus on Canadian movies on Canadian screens. He asked Karlin if the mpaa would consider ‘a limited endorsement’ of a quota system for the Canadian theatrical market, to which Karlin promptly replied, ‘No.’

Broadcasting measures

Dan Johnson, executive director of the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters, says cafde has asked Heritage Minister Michel Dupuy ‘to take steps in film and video analogous to the measures that exist in broadcasting which apply to the pay, pay-per-view and free markets.’

Two recent developments seem to offer Canadian distributors a glimmer of hope.

First, a stated concern on the distribution issue by Dupuy, and second, a ‘new’ attitude on the part of the u.s. majors.

In a recently published report, Valenti said: ‘If there were sour feelings in the past over gatt, let’s get it behind us. Whatever the rules of the game any country inserts, we’ll live with them.’ The initial unexpectedness of this statement from the mpaa has apparently helped Canadian distributors realize just how far they have fallen.

The counterpoint to Valenti’s post-gatt position, and the basis for renewed hope for Canada’s distributors is a statement by Dupuy, first reported in the Jan. 3 issue of Playback: ‘There are not nearly enough Canadian productions in our cinemas. Despite the slow improvement of overall market share of Canadian distributors, the level of Canadian screen time is only 6%. I cannot rest in peace when I see these figures. I feel that something has to be done.’

According to Rene Malo, cafde chairman, Canada needs an integrated strategy with investments in production, distribution and exhibition.

‘The reason the quota issue is being raised is that in the world of film distribution, Canada is not a country,’ Malo told Playback following the symposium. ‘Canadian distributors do not have access to independently produced films because the u.s. and Canadian rights to 80% of these films are now purchased directly by the mini-majors in the u.s.’

Karlin offered some insight into the u.s. position: ‘We’re not in a fighting mood, (but) we have no desire to co-operate ( in the financing of European movies) because the films are not commercial.’

‘Easy scapegoat’

He said the u.s. ‘is an easy scapegoat’ for motion picture producers who aren’t otherwise qualified to compete, nationally or in the export market.

As proof, he pointed to Germany, where theatrical admissions have gone from 17.7 million in 1983 to 10.4 million in 1993. Karlin pointed out that the u.s. share of the German market has remained stable. ‘The decline in admissions is due to local (German) production, which has gone to hell,’ he said, presumably because it was bad.

In Canada, according to Karlin, seven mpaa members contributed $2.3 billion (Cdn) to the Canadian economy in the three-year period from 1991 to 1993, an impressive $770 million a year. He says the u.s. leaves 82% of its Canadian earnings behind in Canada in the form of capital cost investment, Canadian production development and acquisitions, advertising and publicity materials, lab, dubbing and print costs, commercial taxes, and sales and copyright expenditures.

The seven mpaa members employ 3,145 people in Canada, and combined, produced 28,166 motion picture prints (for the Canadian market) between 1991 and 1993.