Montreal: Cinepix Film Properties will take a major step up in feature film production this year, perhaps its last as a privately held company.

‘We are about a year from going public,’ says president Andre Link. ‘We feel that ’97 is going to be a banner year for us.’

cfp’s top-line revenue projection for ’96/97 is in the $70 million range, with half from new production, about $20 million from distribution activity, and the balance from animation production and a newly launched international sales division.

Production topped $21 million last year, and will be in the $35 million range in ’96/97, says Toronto-based senior vp Jeff Sackman.

cfp is reporting consolidated revenues of $55 million for the year ending March 31, up $15 million over ’94/95.

The 34-year-old company has five divisions.

Canadian theatrical distribution is headed by senior vp Christian Larouche in Montreal and Sackman in Toronto. The new CFP International is headed by vp sales Marie-Claude Poulin, formerly of Malofilm International, while New York-based cfp is headed by vp u.s. distribution Adam Rogers, a former executive with Miramax.

cfp distributes in all media in Canada and has a 55% interest in Jacques Pettigrew’s Cine-Groupe, a long-established Montreal animation company.

Link, Larouche, cfp chairman John Dunning and Sackman are all active producers.

Dunning and Link, 1993 Air Canada career achievement winners, established Cinepix in 1962 and hold 40% of the company. Larouche and Sackman hold 10%.

On the English side, Sackman says cfp’s ’96/97 production slate includes an eclectic mix of eight to 12 features including dramas, family features, action films and thrillers. The films will be shot in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

First up is George Erschbamer’s Bounty Hunters 2, to be shot in Vancouver in mid-June, and a promising $3 million kids’ adventure film called Stanley and the Boys, slated for September. Rob Boyd (South of Wawa, Kids in the Hall) is the director. A Stanley Cup heist story, Sackman says the nhl and Hockey Hall of Fame have agreed to co-operate, and the film ‘could actually return funds to the agency (Telefilm Canada).’

Other features on tap this summer/fall from cfp include Mark Lester’s (Firestarter) Double Take, presently casting and set to shoot in Toronto in mid-June; The New Breed, an action film; Stone Jungle, a prison drama slated to shoot in Montreal; I’ll Remember April, a wwii drama set on the Pacific Coast; Steve Di Marco’s Boarders, ‘a weird, edgy suspense thriller;’ and Prisoner of Love.

Sackman says cfp will announce production plans for the new Nicolas Roeg psycho-thriller Mygal at next month’s Cannes Film Festival.

In financing terms, cfp prefers to keep major territories because of the better back end for completed product, says Sackman.

On the French feature side, Larouche says ’96 production includes Maman, last call from director Alain Chartrand (Ding et Dong, le film), being scripted by La Presse columnist Nathalie Petrowski, and La Reve de la Carrote, a $7.5 million official minority coproduction with FIT Productions, Paris.

cfp just wrapped The Heist, a $3 million action-thriller produced in association with Vancouver producer James Shavick. 1995 feature shoots include George Mihalka’s L’Homme Ideal, Marc F. Voizard’s chop-socky action film Hawk’s Vengeance, and Olympica, a 26 half-hour history of the Olympics coproduced with Via le Monde.

Distribution outlook

The company is stepping up its international export activity under Poulin.

cfp has international rights to Robert Lepage’s Le Polygraphe, except for French territories, and will also rep The Whole of the Moon, coproduced by Montreal’s Cinar Films, and Dogs: The Rise and Fall of an All-Girl Bookie Joint.

The company’s New York office plans to distribute eight to 10 films in the u.s. this year, filling a specialty niche (the former art house circuit) that Link says has largely been abandoned by the classic and mini-major distributors .

On distributing foreign-language and French features, Larouche says the Quebec market can only support five to 10 films a year.

‘In ’95, only one French film passed the $600,000 (Quebec box office) mark, Le Hussard sur le toit. Farinelli, Gazon maudit and Un Indien dans la ville were the other films which grossed over $350,000,’ notes Link.

European slate

‘I would say any picture that does less than $300,000 is a waste of time,’ he says.

New on cfp’s European feature slate are La Belle verte from La Crise director Coline Serreau, Andre Techiney’s l’Enfant de la nuit and Claude Berri’s $40 million historical drama Ils Partiront dans l’Ivresse. cfp has the French-track rights to New Line’s Pinocchio

Link says the fall ’95 Quebec slate of (Telefilm-financed) features was more than respectable, with titles such as Liste Noire, Le Sphynx, Le Confessionnal and L’enfant d’eau, ‘and Margaret’s Museum is also doing well on the English side.’

He says cutting Telefilm’s budget is a big mistake because the feature industry requires a higher ‘critical mass of national production.’

‘We need to produce at least 12 French pictures and somewhat more in English financed by the institutions (a year), otherwise we fall below the success level. This is because only one of 10 will do well, while three or four might do okay and five or six will bite the dust. And if you look at the studios, they are not doing any better. Look at Margaret’s Museum, it is doing very well but you have to produce a lot of films to find a Margaret’s Museum.’

Larouche says it is important that Quebecois films are made but the financing outlook is not especially promising. ‘That’s why we’re involved in a film like Jean Beaudry’s Le Cri de la nuit (produced by Productions Lundi Matin and the nfb)a superb little film. It is an increasingly difficult kind of film with the public but we have to keep at it.’

While English feature production is on the rise, ‘unfortunately this year we are going to produce fewer (French-track) films than last year, and in two or three yearsI don’t even dare to think about it.’

Larouche has high hopes for the Lux Films’ vamp comedy Karmina, directed by Gabriel Pelletier and written by ex-rbo comic Yves Pelletier, as well as for Georges Mihalka’s L’Homme Ideal, a zany comedy about a 35-year-old professional woman’s search for the right man.