Montreal: Quebec’s French-language directors association wants significant changes to the Canada Feature Film Fund, saying directors and screenwriters deserve a share of the new fund’s reserved or performance envelope.

Roger Cantin, president of the 340-member Association des Realisateurs et Realisatrices du Quebec, says the CFFF performance guidelines deny the reality ‘films are made by a team. We’ve been saying this for years, ‘The team is the producer, screenwriter and the director.’ And now all of a sudden there are important benefits which can be used to start new productions, and they are only being given to the producer and distributor. So all the creative [elements] which work to renew our cinema’s originality are set aside.’

The ARRQ wants Telefilm Canada, which administers the CFFF, to revise the performance guidelines so funding is ‘automatically and equitably shared by directors, screenwriters, producers and distributors who would be free to associate [again] in a new project, or to attribute their share of the envelope to projects of their choice.’

Cantin says the fundamental CFFF policy orientation had been predetermined by the Heritage Department, but the association intends to pursue the issue at meetings in August with managers at Telefilm.

‘We met with Telefilm [July 3],’ says Cantin. ‘It was only informal to let them know what’s happening and we asked to officially meet with them in August. It seemed they [Telefilm] were surprised.’

In a communique released last week, the ARRQ says directors and screenwriters have no guarantee performance envelope funds, allocated on the basis of the success of their films, will be used to finance any subsequent projects with their participation.

Cantin says the position has wide support among the 70 or so ARRQ directors active in features.

The directors say they are not contesting Telefilm’s support for producers and distributors, only the policy of disassociating directors and screenwriters from benefits accrued from success at the box office, and ‘the entire control’ by producers and distributors of the annual $17-million French-language feature film performance envelope.

Not only do directors want a share of the performance benefits, but Cantin says the performance system as a whole undermines innovative lower-budget and auteur films.

‘Our members are saying it’s like monoculture, like in the old countries. It’s sugar cane and nothing else,’ says the director. ‘With this policy, what will happen is that in order to be profitable producers are always obliged to do the same kinds of films, that is, the films that are the most popular.’

‘We can’t let this go,’ says Cantin. ‘If the performance envelope becomes 70% or 80% of all the money invested in the production of feature films, then there won’t be a single director who has a word to say about anything. We’ll simply become employees. We just have to take the producer’s hand. They’ll take us where they want, and if we don’t follow, it’s the door and they’ll take another director.’

Signatories to the ARRQ communique include Denys Arcand, Paule Baillargeon, Jean Beaudin, Louis Belanger, Mark Blandford, Michel Brault, Erik Canuel, Alain Chartrand, Denis Chouinard, Richard Ciupka, Bernard Emond, Philippe Falardeau, Robert Favreau, Denyse Filiatreault, Andre Forcier, Claude Gagnon, Pierre Gang, Emile Gaudreault, Francois Girard, Jacques Godbout, Magnus Isacsson, Michel Jette, Francis Leclerc, Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, Jean-Claude Labrecque, Robert Menard, Georges Mihalka, Robert Morin, Gabriel Pelletier, Lea Pool, Michel Poulette, Louis Saia and Denis Villeneuve. *