It’s Saturday morning and I’m sitting in the Rogers Industry Centre during the Toronto festival sifting through a pound of press releases and invitations left in my press box, when a man sitting next to me asks if I’ve seen anything worthwhile. Before I have a chance to tell him that I had seen Last Wedding and thought it was quite impressive in performance and dialogue and that I couldn’t get a couple of its, let’s say, raw sex scenes out of my mind,’ he starts mumbling something about some press screening he’d just come from. ‘Oh you’re press?’ I ask. ‘No, no, I’m a distributor. American. I’ve been coming to this festival for years,’ he responds. ‘So, did you see Last Wedding?’ I ask.

He hadn’t. In fact, it seems given the tone of his reaction that he hasn’t even heard of it. I tell him it was the opening film – a Canadian movie from Vancouver. I point out the noteworthiness of it being the first Vancouver film to ever open the Toronto festival and certainly an uncharacteristic move for TIFF to program such a low-budget film as its opening gala. His response: ‘I don’t come to see the Canadian films. They don’t have any commercial value.’

‘So what do you come for?’ I ask, realizing my next editorial is beginning to write itself.

‘I’m looking to pick up international rights to commercially viable independent films,’ he says. ‘Oh that’s original,’ I respond, half joking, half not. Either way, he’s less fazed by my sarcasm than he is by my chest – clearly the most commercially viable Canadian asset he’s interested in looking at.

‘The problem is,’ he says, ‘anything really worthwhile is already tied up.’ He’s pointing to the arguably increasing reality that TIFF has become more of a marketing blitz for movies with theatrical than a free-for-all pool of independent films.

‘So you won’t even consider considering a Canadian film?’ I ask. The answer is basically no.

Mr. L.A. distrib proceeds to explain the uselessness of Canadian films in the business world. We chat a bit about the Canadian subsidy system and the new performance-based envelopes doled out by Sheila Copps’ new and augmented Canadian Feature Film Fund.

I tell him about the Lewis Horowitz Organization’s new presence in Canada (see p. 1) and how alternative financing avenues like sale and leaseback are also setting up shop here (see p. 11). I explain that it’s a longer-term goal, but eventually the Canadian film industry will not just be about cultural representation and protectionism. That obviously foreign financiers see ‘commercially viable’ product coming out of Canada or they wouldn’t be much interested in lending against unsold territories.

But nothing will impress this globe-trotting distrib, who eventually reveals he’s originally from Canada. He doesn’t care about our country’s new focus on commercial viability. He doesn’t buy it. ‘There are no stars!’ he exclaims more than once. He challenges me to name one name-brand actor who got his/her start in a low-budget Canadian film.

I still have to get back to him on this one.