Banff, AB: As one cabdriver puts it: ‘If you don’t like the weather in Banff, wait five minutes.’ The same can be said about the topics being discussed at Banff2002. If you don’t like the subject matter…

Indeed, the themes of the Banff Television Festival are varied.

In the sessions, the talk ranges from the importance of public broadcasting, to the importance of Cancon, to the importance of John Cleese. But out on the veranda at the Banff Conference Centre and in the delegates lounge, it remains business as usual.

‘It’s the same every year,’ says VisionTV cofounder Peter Flemington. ‘It’s all funding; all deals.’

Ask the producers and commissioning editors their impressions of this year’s festival, held June 9-14, and most speak of the business activity and the pitches. Few are interested in talking about the broader domestic and international industry issues or the themes being hashed out in the sessions.

‘This is the best year yet in terms of the quality of pitches,’ says Jim Erickson, VP programming for Alliance Atlantis Communications’ Life Network and HGTV Canada. ‘I think it’s because people finally understand what the [Life and HGTV] brands are about.’

Now in his fifth year at the festival, Erickson has done nothing but listen to pitches all week long.

While she has come to pitch a new documentary on Newfoundlander stereotypes, St. John’s filmmaker Barbara Doran laments the dying art of true documentary filmmaking. During an impossibly beautiful sunny day on the veranda, Doran says more and more of her colleagues are arriving to pitch reality-based and lifestyle programming.

‘People are talking about having to move into doing entertainment television [such as] home repair, effective shopping and cooking on a shoestring,’ she says.

‘Filmmakers are having to turn to that to survive. It becomes a question for us, too: Is that why we got into filmmaking? If not, then, how will we survive?’

At the same time, beneath the pitches, business dealings and prepared speeches – or perhaps parallel to them – the buzz around Banff this year has a ring of social consciousness to it.

Pat Ferns, president and CEO of the Banff Television Foundation, has invited 80-odd delegates from Africa and put the spotlight on the continent’s STEPS for the Future initiative, a coproduction involving 20 countries including Denmark, Finland and South Africa that commissioned, produced and distributed 35 films from across the continent dealing with the impact of HIV/AIDS.

Ferns points to such initiatives as a model for Canadian production because these are projects by Africans, about Africans.

The same theme was articulated by Senator Laurier LaPierre during the festival’s opening ceremony when he called for a redefinition of Canadian content as productions by Canadians, about Canadians.

Cultural diversity

And it is a theme that resonates around the festival, particularly by those calling for greater representation of Canada’s multicultural reality.

Their argument is given credence by the festival’s tribute to the U.K., which brings representatives from a country awakened in 1985 by race riots, that, in turn, made England a world leader in creating programming focused on cultural diversity.

As June Dromgoole of Channel 4 Television in the U.K. points out during a session on diversity, C4’s licensing agreement requires it to transmit a minimum of three hours of multicultural programming each day.

‘Everyone wants to see themselves, and their lifestyles, reflected [on TV],’ she says.

And what of the argument that such programming can’t draw enough viewers?

Dromgoole says the national network’s two top-rated multicultural shows, Teachers and Brookside, draw numbers similar to Fraser and Sex and the City – in the neighborhood of two million viewers.

It is also no coincidence that the National Film Board and a new international multicultural production association chose this year’s festival to launch a pair of initiatives focused on diversity.

It is, in fact, what brings Flemington to Banff this year. He, along with Toronto-based independent producer Paul de Silva and Melbourne-based Film Australia executive producer Franco di Chiera, has come to announce the formation of the International Council for Diversity in Film and Television, a collective to be set up in Toronto to help producers and broadcasters hook up in the international market.

‘I like to think of it basically as an enabler that can plug people into other people,’ Flemington says. ‘It’s a kind of nerve centre.’

The ICDFT, he says, is an information service that will provide details of what funds exist for producers of culturally diverse content, what the criteria for the funds are, what international broadcasters might be interested, and what international coproduction treaties exist either formally or informally.

The NFB is using Banff2002 as the platform to announce the winners of its first-ever Reel Diversity Competition. The competition, which represents a commitment of $750,000 by the NFB, provides five emerging minority filmmakers from across Canada with the opportunity to make a 40-minute English-language documentary, to be televised on CBC/CBC Newsworld and Vision.

The winners are Juanita Peters of Halifax for Really Big Show; Kyoka Tsukamoto of Montreal for Nancianne; Aeyliya Husain of Toronto for Classroom 220; Anand Ramayya of Saskatoon for The Making Of; and Eunhee Cha of Vancouver for A Tribe of One.

Here are some other highlights from Banff2002:

Sunday

In a private meeting, heritage Minister Shiela Copps tells representatives from Canada’s talent and craft guilds and production associations that she intends to look into why there are fewer Canadian dramas on TV. Copps agrees to form an informal working group to review the 1999 Canadian TV policy to see how Canadian federal regulators can encourage more dramas on TV.

Monday

To commemorate CBC’s 50th anniversary, broadcast journalist Robert MacNeil tells a capacity crowd that television represents our culture to such a degree that public broadcasters, such as the CBC and PBS, must be protected to keep them free of commercial interests. ‘Our airwaves should not be captured totally by commercial interests, because inevitably those commercial interests will wriggle free of public service obligation,’ he says.

The day is packed with worthwhile sessions, including a Showcase of Excellence with John Cleese that leaves its audience in hysterics and a session on news media coverage of Sept. 11 that provokes a more somber mood.

The evening begins with the 23rd annual Banff Rockie Awards ceremonies. As if Canadian producers needed a reminder of the importance of coproductions, Canada shares top honors this year in the $50,000 Global Television Grand Prize for the U.K./U.S./Canada coproduction of Othello (LWT/WGBH Boston in association with CBC). Othello also wins the Sony International Critics Prize. Meanwhile, Canada/U.K. copro I Was A Rat (BBC/Catalyst) wins best children’s program. NFB documentary Shinny – The Hockey in All of Us wins best sports program.

Tuesday

The day begins with the 18th International Market Simulation. The standout is Dorothy Engleman and Susan Ferrier Mackay, who present their concept for Queen of the Castle, a reality show that pits a group of gay men locked in a castle against one another vying for who will be crowned queen. In the New Players Pitch, Albertans Diane Randle and Natalie Selinger win the prize for Hypoxia Way.

Wednesday

Having premiered in 2001, the CTV Canadian Documart: The World’s Richest Pitch has quickly become the highlight of the festival for many in attendance. This year’s installment does not disappoint.

Eschewing the props of many such public pitches, this year’s winner takes the $50,000 first prize on pure performance. Of course it helps when part of the pitching team is Kids In The Hall alumnus Scott Thompson. Thompson, accompanied by producer Hilary Jones-Farrow, leaves commissioning editors and audience members alike in stitches through the pitch for Do You Know Where We Can Get A Donkey?, an exploration of comedy across cultural borders.

Holy Grail, which focuses on groundbreaking gene therapy for the treatment of cancer, wins the $30,000 second prize for Toronto-based producer Dugald Maudsley, while The Eternal Frontier, examining the 65-million-year history of North America, wins the $20,000 third prize for Montreal producer Arnie Gelbart and Australian Chris Hilton.

Thursday

Comedy seems to be the theme on the second day of the New Players Pitch sessions, as Josh Dean and Graham Wagner win for mock science documentary Ha! Canada: A Scientific Exploration of Why Canadians are Funnier than Everyone Else. The team also wins the Audience Choice Award of $5,000 in professional film product courtesy of Kodak.

Friday

Peter Raymont wins $10,000 in development funding in Telefilm Canada’s Two in a Room pitch session for Before His Time.

-www.btvf.com