Reading about the CFTPA conference, I get the feeling that producers don’t talk to anybody except bureaucrats and never go anywhere except to film festivals and conferences. How else to explain how little English-Canadian producers know about what their audiences want?

Isn’t it odd that Disney makes films about Canadian-friendly subjects like kid hockey teams and dogsled races when nobody in Canada is? How come nobody’s done a biopic about the young Wayne Gretzky?

If Britney Spears can be starred in a film, why hasn’t a Canadian producer built a film around Celine Dion or Nelly Furtado? If marketing a Canadian film is difficult, wouldn’t a film starring one of the above make it easy to get noticed in the Canadian media? As those performers have international followings, wouldn’t that lead to foreign sales?

In a country that spawns so many comedians, why isn’t anybody making comedies?

I know that the deck is stacked against Canadian features, but I can’t help thinking that producers and bureaucrats should be sent to sell popcorn at multiplexes for a year. Maybe then they’ll understand audiences better. If nothing else, they’ll experience the novelty of taking money from paying customers.

Mark Mayerson, Catapult Productions,