Montreal: The real mission for independent movie producers is to do battle with the Hollywood studios, says Jared Underwood, senior VP and comanager, Imperial Entertainment Group in the U.S.

In a short speech at a Montreal World Film Festival & Market Conference, Underwood said Imperial gap finances about 60 films a year, and most of them are bad. The rare successful ones like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Snatch and The Full Monty are marketable proof non-studio films can also compete, he says.

The banker told producers likely film projects will require a nearly complete budget, the participation of a credible international sales outfit, a director and some casting in place. Imperial, now part of the Comerica Bank operation, carefully checks out the quality of existing presales and the probable monetary value of unsold territories.

Underwood said the key to success in the indie film business ‘is a constant source of good information and good relationships.’

Film financing is dynamic and constantly changing, he says, with trends like gap financing, insurance-based funds, stock markets and tax-based media funds going from boom to bust, often overnight. ‘But there is always some other money out there,’ says Underwood.

The banker says it’s ‘a minor miracle’ if an indie film gets made and ‘a major miracle if it’s good.’ A bad film doesn’t mean Imperial holds the movie’s producer to be bad. That only happens if the producer doesn’t pay back the money owed to the bank.

A revitalized market?

While some of the U.S. trade writers squirted in and out of town only to ‘discover’ the WFF market was ‘moribund,’ the consensus here is the market was livelier than at any time in the past five years.

Market director Gilles Beriault admits ‘it’s harder selling a film than many people think,’ but that’s exactly what many of the more than 1,300 registered festival guests were trying to do.

There was real commercial interest in the 2001 German box-office hit Das Experiment, and in the Swiss/German title Still Life, but most of the hustling is done by the many small to very small indie filmmakers, who followed their films to Montreal with the reckless hope of scoring a distribution deal.

The main difference this year appeared to be efforts by the festival’s operations team to boost animation. Observers noted the growing Latin American and U.S. industry guest lists were top-notch, but some of the European delegations seemed decidedly less than seasoned.

Richard Paradis, CAFDE president, says this year’s market seems to have a ‘an air of renewal,’ and the key issue now is whether organizers can build for upcoming editions.

A fan of the Montreal festival, Paul Gratton, Bravo! station manager and programming VP at Space: The Imagination Station, spent the better part of a week screening what the festival has in spades – foreign-language films. If subtitled films tend to undermine ratings, the affable industry veteran says the station licenses as many as 50 foreign-language titles every year.

And if major French delegations like Unifrance International were again absent, obviously a sore point with the Montreal industry, Beriault says TF1 International and UGC were present and busy, as were U.S. representatives from Fireworks Pictures, Interlight, Roxie Releasing, AKA Movies, Miramax Films, IFM Film Associates, the Sundance Film Festival, HBO, USA Films and Franchise Pictures, along with first-time delegates from Cinetic Media and Good Machine. Sony Pictures, following a 10-year absence, was also present.

WFF’s 25th edition wraps Sept. 3 when the festival awards, including the Grand Prix des Amerique for best film in official competition, will be announced.