Telefilm Canada’s Francois Macerola is calling for an increase of nearly 90% in direct federal funding for feature films as of April 1, 2000.

In a report prepared for Heritage Minister Sheila Copps, Telefilm’s executive director makes recommendations on all aspects of feature financing – production, distribution, and promotion – plus notes on creator-centred policies, children’s cinema and film preservation.

In the report, an outline for a new Canadian Feature Film Fund, Macerola says the feature industry suffers for a lack of regulatory and other policies that have blessed Canadian television. He says the government must formally salute the cultural import of cinema with a major cash infusion – from about $45 million per year now from Telefilm (including the Feature Film Distribution Fund), and the Canadian Television Fund – to $85 million beginning next fiscal. Federal financing should rise to $125 million a year by fiscal 2004/05.

‘I’ve been rehearsing this for – I don’t know how many years now,’ says Macerola. ‘I’ve done some thinking with my people to challenge the Canadian government’ to support production of more films, of better quality. ‘And in order to do that we need more money.

‘Some people say ‘Concentrate on tv,’ which is going well. Not everyone in Ottawa [is] in total support of feature films. We have to convince them…it’s as important to the cultural life of this country as television.’

Macerola’s report cites several areas needing higher numbers, including:

* productions per year, currently at 30, should grow to 45 by the end of fiscal 2000, and to 60 by 2005;

* average production budgets (on Telefilm/ctf-funded projects), now $2.8 million, should hit $3.5 million by next year, $4 million by mid-2005; and,

* percentage of budgets dedicated to distribution and marketing, currently a paltry 7.5%, should hit 12.5% next year, 15% by 2005. (If spending on promotions causes producers to run short of cash for acquiring rights, broadcasters should bridge the gap.)

Macerola’s report arrives about eight months after the release of a controversial report from Copps’ Feature Film Advisory Committee. Some of Macerola’s suggestions are similar to those in the ffac report. Macerola’s cfff would have three components. An automatic component would create envelopes for established producers and distributors, based on their performance at home and abroad. Funds from the automatic envelope would be allocated according to a company’s past feature film box office receipts – in appraising applicants, this element would be weighted most heavily – video and tv sales, ratings, and so on.

The automatic component would also create incentives for distributors and exhibitors to work together to promote Canuck films, to extend theatrical runs and boost the number of features screening. It would also encourage distributors to carry more marketing costs to ease the burden on exhibitors.

Second, in the ‘cultural risk’ category, the cfff’s selective component would help finance high-quality, lower-budget films made by emerging filmmakers and aboriginal producers from all regions. Macerola wants this component to address shortcomings in storytelling.

‘Currently,’ says the report, ‘funds are scarce, screenwriters are too involved in their screenplays, and producers and distributors are too distant from the process. As a result,…an envelope dedicated to the development of feature films should be put in place. This would not be a writing program,…but a program more focused on the market and with a producer as trigger.’

Third, the commercial component – based on the defunct Commercial Production Fund – would allocate funds with the proviso that Telefilm recoup at least 65% of its investment. This component would support auteur films with high production values, and projects budgeted above $10 million.

Says the report: ‘[I]n the long term,…it is timely to examine, in collaboration with our partners in the financial and audio-visual communities, the creation of an independent commercial body…to offer Canadian production and distribution companies services and financial products adapted to their respective needs. This Corporation could gradually take over the administration of the Commercial Production Fund.’

Macerola and the advisory committee reached different conclusions on both the amount of funding required, and how to get it. Whereas Macerola calls for an eventual kitty of $125 million, the ffac says new federal money plus existing funds should total $150 million. In terms of how to lasso the required money, Macerola avoids the ffac’s call to amend the Production Services Tax Credit so as to limit it to ‘Canadian feature film producers producing Canadian feature films for theatrical release.’ Macerola also rejected the committee’s bid for ‘a (3.5%) levy on gross receipts of all theatrical and video distributors operating in Canada.’

He says he’d like to see a commitment to the importance of feature film in the next speech from the throne, possibly this fall, with details of a new policy in the next federal budget, expected next spring.