VANCOUVER: The Canadian Feature Film Fund’s controversial roster of top-performing Canadian films has undergone some transformation since it was published Mar. 29, but it won’t be including Air Bud and Art of War, two recent films that won the Golden Reel award for box office success.

Both films fall one point short of the minimums required to be eligible, but that one point for each company represents millions in future film funding.

Released in 1997, Air Bud is a six-out-of-10 Canadian content film. It needs seven points to qualify. Art of War, released in 2000, is a seven-out-of-10 film, but needs eight points to qualify. If both films had been made as coproductions (as simple as hiring a foreign producer from, say, the U.K.), they would have qualified.

It is that seemingly arbitrary line in the sand that has Air Bud producer Keystone Entertainment of Vancouver and Art of War distributor TVA International of Montreal incensed and ready to challenge the eligibility requirements.

A review of the producer rewards granted by CFFF suggests the fight is worth it: Adding Air Bud, which earned $25 million in the U.S. alone, and its less successful sequel Air Bud II would, for example, increase Keystone’s CFFF envelope from $1.45 million to the $3.5 million production cap.

(TVA is on the production list for features The Assignment and Screamers, while Keystone was successful in getting MVP: Most Valuable Primate added to the list since Mar. 29.)

At the time of the CFFF’s unveiling, federal Heritage Minister Sheila Copps said Canadian films that put ‘bums in seats’ would be rewarded. Excluding Air Bud and Art of War is discriminatory, argues Keystone president Michael Strange, and flies in the face of the vision for the fund.

‘It discriminates against fully Canadian controlled production,’ he says. ‘It encourages us to spend money outside of Canada.’

B.C. film insiders suggest that all Canadian-certified films since 1996, when CAVCO content rules changed, should be eligible and only productions with eight-out-of-10 points from now on be eligible. As it stands, the CFFF penalizes successful producers for decisions made years before the CFFF was a concept. Certainly, they argue, the producers would have made changes to films since 1996 had they known then of the substantial windfall in 2001 of adding an extra Canadian content point or bringing on a foreign partner.

‘Air Bud, Air Bud II and Art of War were all playing by the rules to qualify as Canadian,’ contends Strange, who has written a formal letter to Telefilm and says the federal funder has contributed to less then 1% of Keystone’s 20 features. ‘They should revisit the guidelines.’

Tom Rowe, co-chair of the CFFF’s advisory panel, says these issues will be brought forward when the committee convenes for the first time in September.

When asked whether Keystone might take legal action, Strange says he prefers first to work with government for a solution.

One legal opinion, however, suggests that Keystone may have a case if it can prove that Telefilm’s intended use for CFFF – to promote the movies Canadians want to see – is inconsistent with the way it actually administers the fund.

Vancouver-based Boneyard Film Company, maker of Kissed, is new to the original list and can apply for $450,000 toward its next eligible film. Eye of the Beholder, produced by the late Nicolas Clermont of Montreal, was taken off the original list because there was no one else to claim the reward.