Following a special meeting in Banff June 11, Telefilm Canada’s executive director Francois Macerola will meet with Western producers and film organizations in the first week of July to discuss solutions to the federal funding agency’s domestic shortfall in the Equity Investment Program.

Demand for English-language tv funds at Telefilm this year overshoots the actual $48.2 million budget by, to date, about $27 million. The result is that 25 Western producers have already been told that their projects ­ which have broadcast licences attached ­ will not receive funding. Frustration is at a high.

‘The hew and cry has been raised by Western Canada about the early collapse of the funding,’ says Sheila Mombouquette, coordinator of the b.c. branch of the cftpa and one of about 20 Western Canadian participants at the Banff meeting.

For his part, Macerola remains cryptic. ‘We agreed to disagree on a certain number of points,’ he says. ‘But we will be meeting in a few weeks to discuss [the Western representatives’] solutions.’

The problems for Western producers stretch from how much of the fund is allocated the region, the role of renewals in the system, and in national funding policy in general.

Macerola indicated that controversial funding issues regarding shared public-private programming like series Traders or Emily of New Moon will be discussed.

Cold Squad, the new bbs series hit by the current funding squeeze, will also prove a case study on tv projects that straddle provincial boundaries. D’es Cold Squad ­ produced by Julia Keatley in Vancouver and Anne Marie La Traverse at Atlantis in Toronto ­ receive funding from the Western or Toronto envelopes, Macerola asks rhetorically.

Whether the solutions will liberate more regional funding this year has yet to be determined. But Macerola hopes the Western-based proposal will establish a strategy that will convince the feds to put a greater emphasis on funding when demand has never been greater.

‘I’m dreaming of the day when Telefilm can say yes to 90% of the applications.’

He adds Telefilm’s budget will increase $25 million next year.

Mombouquette says the funding crisis is a galvanizing force in the West.

Those at the June 11 meeting included representatives of the bcmpa, ampia, smpia and mmpia and the b.c. branch of the cftpa.