Leo Furey, executive director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation, is delighted to be able to recite production volume figures for the province’s burgeoning film industry. In the 18 months since the fdc was established under his stewardship, production in the province has jumped from $2 million to $9.5 million in 1998, while 1999 has already seen $5 million in business.

The Newfoundland film industry’s considerable growth spurt gained further impetus this year with the announcement of a generous provincial tax credit program. The credit is based on a calculation of eligible labor limited to the lesser of 25% of the total eligible budget or 40% of the total eligible labor expenditures.

Along with the establishment of the tax credit came the news that Newfoundland’s equity investment fund would be topped up to $1 million from the previous amount of $700,000. The fund has supported most of the major productions coming out of the province, including Misery Harbour, The Divine Ryans and Extraordinary Visitor, and has put money into such coming projects as Random Passage, Violet and Ron Hynes: The Irish Tour.

The recent bonanza, however, has not disposed members of the province’s film industry to rest on their laurels. A number of initiatives geared towards both fostering additional growth and addressing concerns in the film community are under way.

This year, producers took part in a provincial trade mission to Ireland, which resulted in development deals for Rinkrat Productions and Companion Films. Rinkrat’s Mary Sexton is currently in Ireland shooting a documentary project called Ron Hynes: The Irish Tour, with broadcast sales to rte in Dublin and ctv in place. Shelagh Nageira: The Pirate Princess, an animation fantasy, is in the works from a partnership between Companion and producers Fred Wilfs in l.a. and Eamon Lawless in Dublin.

In a follow-up to the trade mission, a group of Irish producers was in Newfoundland for a conference last weekend, and the relationship will continue with a visit by Newfoundland producers to the Galway Film Festival in July.

Other initiatives focus on addressing the problem of access to resources and financing in Canada. Ken Pittman, chair of the Film Producers Association of Newfoundland, says his group is trying to find solutions to deal with the province’s isolation from broadcasters and buyers. Pittman points to the loss of the local cbc studio in St. John’s as a particular source of frustration for producers.

‘What we have now is a very diminished operation at the cbc, with no ability to provide fees for a broadcast licence at the local level,’ says Pittman. To compound the problem, he explains, the national cbc network has dibs on a certain amount of Telefilm money, making it even harder for local producers to gain access to the fund. ‘For a local producer to get a local production sold to the local cbc is impossible.’

The Producers Association recently gave a presentation to the crtc’s cross-country consultation committee, highlighting its concerns about inadequate access to the cbc network. On June 4, members of the association continued their lobby efforts on behalf of the Newfoundland film community in a meeting with Telefilm Canada executives. (The results of this meeting were unavailable at press time.)

In spite of some growing pains for the industry, the province’s production companies will be busy this summer and fall with a full slate of projects. Ken Pittman’s Red Ochre Productions is wrapping up Misery Harbour, a coproduction with Motlys of Norway and Angel Arena of Denmark. Directed by Nils Gaup, the film will be delivered to Alliance Atlantis for Canadian distribution and international distributor G2 (previously Goldwyn) in July.

Red Ochre will spend the fall in development with Saskatchewan producer Clark Donnelly of Film Crew Productions on a feature film called Charlie Wilcox. The screenplay tells the story of a boy born with a club foot who plans to run away with the seal hunt, but mistakenly finds himself in the trenches of France during WWI.

On another front, Ken Pittman, along with Mary Sexton and Jennice Ripley from Film East, have banded together to form New Land Productions, which is currently in development on a preschool children’s televsion series called The Dog and Pony Show. The 15-minute program features a Newfoundland dog with the voice and personality of a four-year-old girl and a Newfoundland pony that speaks in the grandfatherly tones of a 65-year-old man. Pilot material generated interest at mip-tv and mipcom, and New Land will shoot six episodes this summer with a view to eventually producing 65 episodes.

Mary Sexton will also be working with Rinkrat on an nfb film documenting the life of her brother, Tommy Sexton, one of the founders of Codco. Using file footage and interviews with family and friends, the film will celebrate the life and work of the comedian, who died of aids in 1993. The project is scheduled to begin shooting in late July.

Under the rubric Dark Flowers Productions, Sexton and Ron Hynes writer Rosemary House go into preproduction in August on the feature film Violet. With Sexton producing and House as writer/ director, the film tells the story of a woman whose parents and brother have all died at the age of 55. As her own 55th birthday approaches, Violet begins to suspect that a family curse is at work.

The largest film project to date for Newfoundland is in development at Passage Films. Random Passage, a novel by local writer Bernice Morgan, is slated to become a $14-million, eight-hour drama series in a coproduction with Blue Heaven Films in the u.k. and Cite-Amerique in Quebec. The story of several generations of Newfoundland women has been adapted for the screen by Denis Walsh and will be directed by John N. Smith in Newfoundland and the Isle of Man. Producers Barbara Doran of Passage Films and Jennice Ripley hope to go into five months of preproduction in September, with their sights set on a winter shoot.

Doran’s documentary company, Morag Productions, is poised to release The Perfect Hero, a study of the writers and readers of the romance novel made with the nfb. Doran is also at work on a project called Homicide: Murder in Everyday Life, which is based on the writing of Newfoundland anthropologist Elliot Leyton. Homicide will be presented to the nfb for development as a coproduction.