Vancouver: The new Canada Feature Film Fund won’t be the boon to B.C. producers that it will be for producers in Central Canada without major restructuring of the draft guidelines released March 29, says the local industry.

‘Overall the fund will be great for the Canadian domestic industry,’ says B.C.-based producer Steve Hegyes and a member of the advisory committee. ‘But B.C. lacks a base of content-providing companies. We have no Rhombus, no Triptych, no big distributors, no broadcasters that buy features. We need to create the same [working] environment that Toronto or Montreal has. Our indigenous industry is in dire straits [and] we have yet to come up with a formula to capitalize film companies.’

Through the local CFTPA office, Hegyes is set to head up the B.C. feature film committee, which he hopes will outline specific recommendations in an organized response to federal funding that will be able to influence Telefilm.

In fact, if there is a solution to the B.C. challenge it’s not clear in the new CFFF criteria, which even funding agency B.C. Film is struggling to comprehend, especially when it comes to the relationship between the guidelines and the calculations used to determine the top 20 films.

Rave Film’s Better Than Chocolate is the only B.C. production to make the top-performing list, while new B.C. resident Mort Ransen has a piece of East Coast feature Margaret’s Museum.

‘From the time [the CFFF] was announced in October, including the consultation in December with the western industry, the concern was expressed explicitly and directly about how Western Canadian producers would be eligible,’ says B.C. Film CEO Rob Egan. ‘The victory is that the split [between the performance and selective envelopes] is 50/50 rather than the 80/20 announced in the fall.’

Egan says B.C. Film is trying to schedule its own meeting with Telefilm to discuss the issue of limited access to the fund and the inclusion of a regional bonus for features done outside of the Toronto and Montreal core.

And then there is the issue of information management at the CFFF. B.C. producers like International Keystone Entertainment didn’t receive the necessary paperwork to verify box office, ownership, CAVCO points and bonuses in time for the list’s publication. Keystone produced the Golden Reel winner Air Bud in 1997.

According to Keystone president Michael Strange, the company’s Air Bud, sequel Air Bud II (1998) and recent release Most Valuable Primate (2000) collectively grossed more than $3 million in Canadian box office, even without the kids movie bonus.

Kissed, the 1996 release by Boneyard Films and director Lynne Stopkewich, earned $256,000 at the Canadian box office, just shy of the threshold set by Stardom at $266,000.

Might caps placed on producers with multiple titles in the top-20 (which is supposed to be the top 20% of box-office performers) mean that more films like Kissed will qualify for performance funding?

Telefilm itself isn’t sure.

Local producers should take the terms ‘Draft’ and ‘Interim’ stamped on the CFFF guidelines at their face value, says John Dippong, director of the feature film business unit at the Vancouver office of Telefilm. Both the top-20 list and the guidelines are in flux and comments, concerns and omissions should be logged ASAP. Telefilm hasn’t decided on a ‘drop-dead’ date for comments but will likely close mid-April.

‘These are interim guidelines and they will probably change,’ says Dippong, noting the difficulty even Telefilm has in tracking Canadian box-office receipts. ‘There will be others on the list.’ *

See main CFFF story, p. 1.