Banff: A chill may have been in the air and some snow may have fallen at the 22nd Banff Television Festival, but with more pitching sessions than ever before and such high profile speakers as Kelsey Grammer and Darren Star, few were complaining about the burgeoning festival that this year boasted a record 1,800 delegates from 28 countries.

But while the Canadian event ascends in size and profile, Canadian television product may have taken a step down this year, being virtually absent from the international award-winners’ queue.

Not one Canadian program won in the 14 main Rockie Award categories. And the Sony International Critics Award went to French doc La terre des ames errantes (La Sept ARTE/INA), which also won the Rockie in the social political category, as well as the Global Television Grand Prize.

The Sony jury also commended Soldiers by Moonlight from Swedish Television and Kurt Gerron’s Karussell from the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic and France.

Canadian TV-makers did, however, pick up a heap of cash for program development.

The winner of the Discovery Digital Networks and NHK high-def competition prize (US$15,000) went to Canadians David Christensen and Damien Lewis (Agitprop Films) for War Hospital.

The winner of the CyberPitch prize was Resonation from Ian Kelso of Canada’s Primitive Entertainment.

Canadian Gavin McGarry won the Sharing Stories: Two in a Room Pitching Competition for Family Road Trip, taking home $5,000 in development funds from Travel Channel, Discovery Communications (USA), Life Network and HGTV Canada.

Winners of the fifth annual Telefilm Canada/Aboriginal Peoples Television Network awards were Cree Spoken Here from Ernest Webb of Rezolution Pictures for the aboriginal-language category, and Burnt Church – Obstruction of Justice from Marianne Jones and Jeff Bear of Urban Rez Productions for the English-language category. The awards take the form of a $10,000 pre-approved contribution for the development or production of a future work eligible for Telefilm assistance.

Other highlights of the festival included 24 master classes with such world-renowned talents as Anne Wheeler, Norman Jewison, Roger Frappier, Mick Csaky (A Cry from the Grave) and Darren Star, who was also on hand for the Canadian Film Centre’s Test Pattern presentation of Sex and the City.

After the screening, which left a theatre full of TV people in hysterics, CBC personality/festival interviewer Ralph Benmergui quickly turned the tone by relentlessly questioning Star not on the intricacies of the show, but rather about the scribe’s middle-class, Jewish upbringing and seemingly irrelevant homosexuality. Finally, after being hissed and told to move on by an increasingly disenchanted audience, the interviewer acquiesced. ‘It is called Sex and the City,’ he exclaimed.

And while sex in the city called Banff may have characterized the underbelly of the festival, business activity and commentary certainly abounded.

A distrib’s POV

Ten years ago, about 80% of Film Transit International’s catalogue was Canadian docs. These days the figure is closer to 5%.

But Jan Rofekamp, company president, says he was at BTVF 2001 mainly to meet with Canadians. ‘Banff has traditionally been a very strong gathering of the Canadian production community. It’s an interesting four or five day visit where I find new (Canadian) projects and films.’

Rofekamp says he’s looking for ‘auteur-driven, single documentaries on subjects that can be sold all over the world.’

Rofekamp’s Banff agenda included talks on Jill Sharpe’s culture-jamming doc The Right to Jam (w.t.), an edgy look at ‘deconstructed advertising.’ And if Sharpe’s doc isn’t quite corporate cheerleading, at least the show ‘talks about major brands,’ says the veteran exporter.

He also met with Vancouver’s Artizan Entertainment on its doc on tribute bands and cover bands for the likes of Rod Stewart, Van Halen, Neil Diamond and more.

Rofekamp is also very keen on Aussie filmmaker Michael Rubbo’s new doc about Shakespeare’s true identity, Much to do about Something.

‘I’m always interested in documentaries about cinema. I’m working on a film now with people in L.A. about the image of Latinos in the history of Hollywood cinema, a film that considers certain stereotypes,’ he says.

Attending her ninth Banff festival, Catherine Lamour, director of documentaries for France’s Canal+, says, ‘I have worked with everybody in coproduction [a reference to the half dozen individuals on the doc podium at Banff 2001] except A&E. Why haven’t I worked with A&E? Because A&E wants to hold on to 100% of the [program] rights and so they can’t share in a coproduction. It’s not that we don’t want to coproduce, it’s them.’

Lamour says Canal + had tried to produce six biographies a year with A&E but ‘because their international department assumes that if they give a share of the production to [another] TV network which has broadcast the film then they (A&E) won’t be able to distribute internationally across all their networks.’

She says the major corporate players would like to control all their production and distribution, but that’s no longer possible in view of the retrenchment in the U.S. advertising market.

‘Producers will pay’

Lamour says she believes the retrenchment in North America, and specifically U.S. advertising revenues, is very serious, ‘and it is the producers who will pay.’

Up to 40% of Canal+ programming is international.

On Banff, Lamour says, ‘If it wasn’t necessary, I wouldn’t come back. It’s always very interesting and one learns a lot – like today in terms of what’s going on in the American market. We can see people are afraid of losing their audience, [and] losing their advertising revenues.’

Daniel Gourd, director-general, programming at Radio-Canada, says BTVF is ‘the most important festival for creative heads, not for our buyers.’

He met with producers from across the country, especially smaller indie producers, as well as international producers, and says all SRC department heads were present this year.

‘Banff is unique for Canadians,’ says Gourd. ‘Banff is increasingly turned towards the world. And that’s good for the festival but it is first a festival for the Canadian collective to cross paths and meet.’

Gourd says perhaps the francophone aspect at Banff could be firmed up (there is the notion and aim that both cultures should be at ease), but adds BTVF is doing a lot better than other so called ‘cosmopolitan’ venues, whether it’s Hot Docs! or the Toronto International Film Festival. From this comparative Canadian perspective, Banff ‘is a model,’ says Gourd. ‘All the documentation is in French and English and if you are French you can always find someone to help. That’s rather remarkable.’

Each year CBC and SRC meet at BTVF to discuss shared productions, traditionally in the performing arts sector. New production this year includes a La La La Human Steps dance special and a Vancouver pantomime/ballet special called The Overcoat.

‘What is remarkable is the shared drama,’ says Gourd.

New shared production includes the Richard Roy biker feature The Last Chapter (Productions Tele-Action), a double-shoot developed by both SRC and CBC. Acquisition exchanges include Random Passage (Cite-Amerique/Passage Films), generously licensed for a first window by SRC for $400,000, while CBC has picked up the contemporary Quebec drama series Gold/L’Or (Productions La Fete).

Both networks are helping to develop the indie production Escaping from the Main (Cirrus Communications), a story about the coming out of an Italian woman, and Trafalgar (Zone3), a miniseries about a Toronto PR shop that buys out a Montreal competitor as part of scheme to make it big in Europe.

Gourd says there are many Montreal producers looking to coproduce in English, but the real challenge ahead is finding ‘a producer from Toronto who’s got an idea and wants to work with us. This is the next step.’

17th Int’l Market Simulations

In the drama and entertainment category, commissioning editors seemed captivated by a spy-thriller proposal called Code from double-Rockie Award-winning producer Jack Emery and the U.K.’s Dramahouse. It’s the mysterious story of secret code-breakers and their strange fate following the Second World War. BBC immediately said they’d meet with the producer but didn’t like his extended 13-hour proposal. Citing Joan of Arc, Alliance Atlantis said historical drama is ‘extremely expensive’ and ’13 hours was too long’ and ‘would be a hard sell in the U.S.’

One commentator wondered if the historical concept was ‘compelling enough’ or ‘too highbrow for an American audience.’ A spokesman from USA Networks said there are openings for limited series, ‘and four hours is probably best.’

Emery defended the subject’s topicality saying it deals with ‘the enveloping culture of government secrecy.’ He’s looking for development money and international partners and needs US$225,000 for a first draft.

Producer Ellen Nielsen of Edmonton’s Magic World Communications pitched a 13-part reality series called Fortune Hunter. The concept involves handing ambitious but impoverished characters/players a small amount of money and tracking them as they attempt to double their money within a limited time-frame.

‘If I gave you $100 could you turn it into $200?,’ she asked a seemingly incredulous Banff audience.

Nielsen said the show is aimed at primetime and she is looking for an experienced coproducer.

CTV said it wasn’t clear on how such a show might roll out, while Global was not in the audience, and a spokesperson for CBC assumed a curt if deferential posture, claiming the public network isn’t moving towards reality shows.

A spokesman for AAC said it sounded something like (the CBC business mag) Venture, and ‘needs more flesh.’ A person from Swedish TV pointed out ‘reality shows are everywhere’ and only ‘appeal to negative feelings.’

A final comment asked if Fortune Hunter wasn’t in fact closer to a doc-style format concept, best pitched to a big format shop like Europe’s Endemol.

The third pitch in the drama segment was for the weekly half-hour comedy-adventure series The New Beachcombers, a revival concept set on the gorgeous Sunshine Coast from Vancouver’s Soapbox Productions.

The producers said they already have a development deal for an MOW and that the show was a ‘Canadian institution’ having aired for 19 years on CBC (from ’71 to ’90) and had in fact ‘sold around the world.’

The producers are looking at a $500,000 per-episode budget involving all the likely funding suspects including Telefilm Canada and BC Film, an international distributor ready to put up 10% against world sales (about $650,000), and a foreign partner.

CBC said it was already in on Soapbox’s MOW but the challenge ‘is to meet the high expectations. The thing has to be brilliant.’

A spokesman for AAC said ‘the financing plan is right’ but the foreign sales potential would have to be checked out carefully. ‘The risk position is not that difficult,’ he said.

A German broadcaster expressed some skepticism, while a BBC commentator thought the show ‘might be an acquisition,’ using qualifying words like ‘rural’ and ‘wimpy’ and wondering if the concept is sitcom or drama.

Understanding America: fact

Available work and matching licence fees are headed downwards as the U.S. advertising market moves towards serious retrenchment. That was one of the summaries at a BTVF panel discussion on Understanding America’s Documentaries, featuring three senior U.S. TV executives, two established Canadian producers and session moderator Ted Riley of Alliance Atlantis.

For openers, David Lint of Cinenova Productions thought the U.S. networks were getting better at defining their needs, while Charles Schuerhoff of CS Associates noted promo dollars were rather scarce and the factual nets were often ‘looking for an instant audience.’

All the panelists agreed this year is ‘a tougher year specifically in terms of upfront sales’ and the retrenchment was far deeper than a simple refutation of the widely discredited ‘dot.com hype.’

Bill Harris of A&E Networks said the network was being ‘more judicious, has slowed down on its commissioning process’ and is being ‘tougher on rights.’

‘The corporate line is intergalactic [control] into perpetuity,’ remarked Harris, only half seriously.

Lint said there’s a growing realization producers also have to adopt a global model, editorially and financially, driven by mega deals like the BBC/Discovery entente announced at MIPCOM in ’99.

In export terms, the panelists seem to give specials, from one to six hours, the edge over extended series, except for Canadian specialty channels, which are licensing many series, said AAC’s Andy Thomson. A case in point: Lint said he ‘met a guy’ who had done 60 garden shows for less than $60,000 an hour.

Talking dot.com fall-out, Toni Egger, director of content development, Discovery Health Channel, said the job of the Discovery Health Web site is to drive Web users to the TV channel ‘where there is an economic model.’

Saying A&E’s relatively staid approach had worked to its advantage, Harris described the dot.com folly as ‘the hot air of mass market culture and so much money.’

Lint said it was ‘the biggest canard I’ve seen watching this stuff in 20 to 30 years,’ with the ‘shining exception’ of PBS and series like The Greeks.

Egger said Discovery was looking at ‘casting from the Web’ and doing audience research for pre-production.

Harris said meta-data from interactive TV would provide better understanding of the audience and could eventually add to, and challenge, the benefits accrued from audience ratings systems.

The BTVF panelists wondered if the ominous retrenchment in the advertising market would lead to a flurry of low-budget shows, or just a few big-budget commissions. ‘There’s greater pressure on hitting the home run,’ said Harris, ‘so we may see a lot more money spent on fewer projects.’

Understanding America: fiction

With more and more runaway productions and American show-runners relocating to Canada because of obvious tax and dollar incentives, Canadians are gradually assuming more and more creative input, says James Dowaliby, CEO, eMovies and former Paramount exec.

‘Overseas buyers have figured out that domestic programming works better,’ he adds, painting an ironically glum picture of U.S. television prosperity.

Highlighting that picture, Hans Schiff, VP of international packaging, William Morris Agency, says the U.S. is not selling as well because other countries have developed a talent pool to make their own versions. TV systems around the world are maturing.’

While the U.S. has consistently favored domestic programs, fiction formats were big business more than a decade ago. In the 1980s, the U.S. saw a surge of format buying from the U.K. with such hits as All in the Family and Sanford and Son, to name a few.

Today, however, ‘competition is greater when you come into the U.S. with comedy and drama that compete with domestic, which is, of course, less so with non-fiction,’ says Schiff.

Also, over the past three years, explains Dowaliby, agents were really pushing the process, pitching shows in 30 seconds and giving us two weeks to make a decision. ‘We were more inclined to pass.’

Kevin Beggs, executive VP of series television, Lions Gate Television (USA) takes a more bottom-line POV. ‘If we’re not able to sell all the territories, we’re not interested in the product.’

And while Beggs admits that Canada’s proximity to the U.S. is advantageous because the two countries speak the same language and grew up on virtually the same shows, he says, ‘If your goal is to make a show in Canada for Canada, it’s a labor of love. It’s meaningful, but not a growth business for a studio.’ Even a mini major one. *