Indies team up

The door to new Canada/u.s. independent film alliances opened a bit wider last month following American Film Marketing Association president Jonas Rosenfield’s whirlwind tour of Canadian indie production hotbeds.

Responding to an invitation by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Canadian Heritage and Telefilm Canada, Rosenfield met with government officials and film industry leaders in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto to discuss issues confronting the independent film industry. Rosenfield says his five days in Canada led to various joint projects being initiated.

‘The Canadian industry refers to itself as an independent industry,’ says Rosenfield, ‘and we are an organization of independents, so we were trying to see how as independents we might help each other.

‘The common objectives we explored were the creation and funding of product, intellectual property protection, and concerns about new technology in terms of access and how one derives revenue and protects the integrity of product.’

Rosenfield met with apftq president Louise Baillargeon, Quebec Film Commissioner France Nadeau, Telefilm executive director Francois Macerola, cafde president Rene Malo and executive director Dan Johnson, CFP Distribution president Andre Link, Astral Distribution’s Stephen Greenberg and Marie-Christine du Four, among others.

Topics ran the gamut from exploring ways to increase production ties between the two countries – in talks at Telefilm, the issue of Canada/u.s. coproductions between indie producers was raised – to probing the vagaries of marketing niche independent films with acct chair Ann Medina and executive director Maria Topalovich.

Things got thornier on the distribution side of talks, specifically the problems associated with Canada being considered part of the u.s.’s domestic market.

In discussions with Rosenfield, Link raised the point that afma members do more business with eastern European, and Australian and New Zealand distributors than Canadian distributors, citing a 10-year statistical study on the afma to make his point.

However, Johnson says: ‘afma recognizes it’s valuable to be able to sell films on a territory-by-territory basis as opposed to the approach used by the studios – lumping territories together.’ Regarding moving forward on this issue, Johnson says, ‘we’re going to see if we can find common ground.’

This newfound affinity is curious, given that historically, rather than an ally, the American feature industry has been considered more of a foe. New overtures to help the indie film industry – like Rosenfield’s Canadian Rolodex additions and initiatives like Gotham – will not only have to contend with the majors, but with overcoming some deep-seated wariness.

However, now that the majors are linking up with all manner of new and old media partners, it makes sense that like other beleagured industry sectors before them – such as the alliance of public broadcasters – the indies are looking for treaty pals, strength in numbers, lest they end up as vertical integration roadkill.