In this special report, Playback steps back to look at both the Montreal World Film Festival and the issues surrounding production in Quebec. Included are interviews with producers, distributors, funding agency managers and service providers on a range of topics including the benefits and trends of production in Quebec, the simmering conflict between domestic and location interests, developments in deal-making, acquisitions and coproductions with European partners, and the lay of the land at WFF. Stories by Leo Rice-Barker.

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Preferring to leave the limelight to others, wff vice-president Daniele Cauchard is the power behind the throne of the 22-year-old festival. Widely acknowledged as a tireless contributor and a connoisseur of world cinema, Cauchard’s role goes back to the festival’s inception, through the best and worst of times.

In an interview with Playback, Cauchard talks about the festival’s evolution, the daunting year-long selection process undertaken by her and wff president Serge Losique, and the role of foreign-language films and the Grand Prix des Ameriques as important components of the festival.

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‘Every year Serge goes to Asia, mainly Japan,’ says Cauchard. ‘We have a very good relationship with China, and this year of course, Serge went to South Korea, because we have a Korean focus.’

Both festival principals travel extensively, often alone, attending screenings in the u.s. and Western Europe, most notably the big festivals in Berlin and Cannes. For the ’98 edition of wff, Cauchard traveled to Italy while Losique screened films in France, Spain and Germany.

Then there’s the avalanche of movie cassettes. ‘It’s a huge part of the process,’ Cauchard says.

In the early years, Cauchard says distributors and filmmakers sent in 35mm film prints. The combination of cost and distance worked to create a form of ‘national preselection,’ but with the advent of the much less expensive videocassette, the number of hopeful entries has grown exponentially.

‘The result was that we used to see fewer films and so we had less work to do,’ says Cauchard. ‘And we could see everything ourselves.’

Since January, Cauchard estimates some 800 cassettes were delivered to the festival, including student films. Only a small percentage make it to the program.

‘You can’t ignore the cassettes,’ she says. ‘It may be a gem, you never know. And so we have to screen everything.

‘Last year, I remember during the deadline period we received up to 90 cassettes a day, which was totally crazy.’

Richard Gay and others help in this phase of the program selection, and Cauchard says their decisions are final. ‘When they say no to a film, we don’t double-check. I’m sorry to say that, but there are only 24 hours in a day.’

Foreign-language films

Latin American cinema has been showcased at the wff since its inception.

‘We wanted to give a special continental dimension to the festival,’ says Cauchard. ‘European festivals also do it, but they intend to insist a little more on European cinemas than on films from Asia or other countries.’

Both near and yet so far away, Cauchard says the quality of Latin America production has varied greatly over the years. Political situations and financing factors can be decisive, she says.

‘We have several films from Argentina this year and I think it’s a good year, but at the beginning of the festival we hardly showed any [Argentinean] films because it was the period of the dictatorship, and they didn’t make many films anyway.

‘When the dictatorship collapsed, suddenly a lot of filmmakers were making films and there was a kind of renewal. A few years back they had real financial problems with the rate of inflation, which was totally out of control. Now it’s improving and it’s a much better situation. It goes by cycles.’

Many foreign-language films at wff do not have North American distribution, and Cauchard says film professionals from abroad are understanding.

‘We have a lot of world premieres and most of the time they don’t have a distributor yet, which is a good thing because at least they are available,’ she says. ‘In a festival you can experiment, and we know and they [the foreign filmmakers] know it will be rather difficult finding a [North American] distributor. This has nothing to do with the distribution system itself. They may be good films for festivals, but some films are just more difficult to sell.’

There are breakthroughs.

Because films are screened in front of a public audience, buyers sometimes get a better feel for a movie’s potential, says Cauchard. While North American buyer activity is mainly restricted to screening and evaluating foreign-language movies, last year Miramax picked up an Iranian film entered in competition.

The competition

Films in competition in Montreal cannot have been entered in competition in other festivals, and normally, may not be released outside their country of origin.

‘I think it’s better this way because it gives us a chance to push filmmakers who are not so well known,’ says Cauchard. ‘What’s the use of having a competition with only the big names which go to every festival?

‘I think there is that tendency with some festivals [to ignore unknown filmmakers], and the press is a little bit to blame because they want big names only. I’m a cinema buff, but I’m not a groupie,’ she says.

This year, Cauchard says wff has several studio releases on the program, including films from 20th Century Fox, Universal, Buena Vista, Warner Bros. and Fox Searchlight

Total attendance for the festival, including outdoor screenings, is close to 350,000.

Cauchard says the festival cannot grow very much more as there are only so many appropriate venues. And if distributors welcome the unparalleled media attention for their films during the festival for commercial motives, Cauchard says they’re content with a screening or two.