Celebrating the successes of film and television producers who maintain their creative sovereignty, this year’s 12th annual Film and Television Trade Forum honors those who can proudly say ‘I Did It My Way.’

Featured guests at the Oct. 8-10 forum include British producer Kenith Trodd (Circle of Friends, Ballroom of Romance), who will be the opening lunch speaker, and Vancouver filmmakers Lynne Stopkewich and Dean English whose film Kissed was one of the darlings of last year’s international festival circuit.

While the Trade Forum theme will wind its way through many of the panels and workshops at the three-day event, the big buzz surrounding this year’s confab is Euro Day, says Trade Forum producer Melanie Friesen.

Designed to demystify the selling process and help Canadian producers forge new coproduction partnerships overseas, Euro Day takes place Friday, Oct. 10.

Commissioning editors, distributors, acquisition execs and producers from France, Germany, England and Scotland will discuss what types of Canadian projects they are interested in, how much they are willing to spend and how to approach the likes of the bbc.

Presenters include Channel 4’s Mairi Macdonald, head of purchased programmes, and Alan Hayling, deputy commissioning editor; bbc feature editor Steve Jenkins; Mayfair Entertainment ceo Dan Weinzweig; Wolfram Tichy, president of German distributor TiMe Medienvertriebs; and Carole Scotta, Haute et Court producer/sales agent.

Morning sessions are devoted to selling to European tv and theatrical, while the afternoon will feature a case study of one of this year’s Canadian film successes, Richard Kwietniowski’s Love and Death on Long Island, a Canada/u.k./Italy coproduction shot in Atlantic Canada which is screening at viff.

Coproducers Chris Zimmer of Halifax’s Imagex and Steve Clark-Hall of Skyline Films in the u.k., along with British Screen Finance’s Cameron McCracken will offer an insider’s look at how the project came together.

Leading up to Euro Day are seminars and panels covering a broad range of topics.

On Wednesday, TV: Public Versus Private will examine the future of public television in the 500-channel universe, followed by Hot Off the Press!, pointers from the pros on how to grab the media’s attention.

Rounding out the morning are sessions on opportunities in animation and the elements of a successful pitch.

Thursday’s lineup includes a financial panel moderated by Matthew O’Connor of Vancouver’s Pacific Motion Pictures which will run through the process of financing a film from the pov of a banker, distributor, financier, producer and lawyer; a session on adapting a screenplay from another medium; and a panel on documentary filmmaking.

Friesen says one panel tweaking a lot of interest is ‘To Laugh Or Not To Laugh: Was Diefenbaker Funny?, moderated by a most unlikely guest, The Right Honorable Joe Clark.

The session focuses on tv series that have flouted convention and asks the question ‘How far is too far?’ Moderating the panel along with the former pm will be Double Exposure creators Linda Cullen and Bob Robertson, This Hour Has 22 Minutes producer Michael Donovan of Halifax’s Salter Street Films and Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore (Roger and Me), producer of the TV Nation television series.

Other panels will look at the pros and cons of working within, and outside, the Hollywood system and what it takes to be a star.

Dedicated to those fresh out of film school or keen to get into the business, New Filmmakers Day returns Saturday for its fourth year.

Kicking off nfd will be a pitching session with two young Vancouver filmmakers – Ken Hegan with his documentary Mascot Mayhem and Clare Queree and Justin MacGregor with their feature project The Vigil.

The day will also feature tete-a-tetes where Canadian filmmakers can meet one on one with European distributors, commissioning editors, buyers and sales agents before they jet back home.

‘I think it is a real plus because it is so expensive to live in Vancouver and be in the business. To get anything concrete done you have to fly to l.a. or Toronto or Europe,’ says Friesen, ‘whereas here you can just sit down with the distributors.’

As for sales, Friesen says, ‘That is more of a Toronto thing. Here it is more one on one, there is a lot of shmoozing between the producers and the people that are here. It is more about projects in motion than finished products so it is not as much of a market as Toronto.’

The 1997 Trade Forum has attracted more than 50 sponsors including Rogers, British Columbia Film, Telefilm Canada, the B.C. Council of Film Unions, the Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture and the Department of Foreign Affairs.