Vancouver: Thinking big is one of those strangely perilous situations in Canadian production financing: Forget your Canuck roots and the found money from public sources, and Telefilm Canada et al gets a bit cranky. Try to capture a commercial appeal and the high-minded Canadian festivals tend to hold their noses. Fantasizing about conquering the U.S. box office is great and all, but remember, the real goal is showing Canada to Canadians.

The Burial Society, an offbeat mystery set in the world of Orthodox Judaism, gets its world premiere at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival, and its producers suffer no lack of gratitude for the taxpayer assistance, nor do they lack the ambition to make a picture that would play internationally.

While they worked the funding gears in the Canadian industry, producers Richard Baumgartel and Howard Dancyger, along with writer/director Nicholas Racz, noshed and kibitzed with their U.S. counterparts for 18 months to try to convert a promising script into a U.S.-supported feature film – with a fat budget to boot.

They attracted the support and endorsement of executive producer J. Todd Harris (Lewis & Clark & George, Urbania, Dudley Do-Right). In the end, despite the efforts to open the U.S. wallet, the Canadian money materialized first and The Burial Society became the prototypical Canadian feature, with Telefilm and the Canadian Television Fund, The Harold Greenberg Fund, the CanWest producers fund and British Columbia Film among the supporters of the $2.2-million budget. Montreal distributor Seville Pictures put up a minimum guarantee to secure the Canadian rights and Citytv and Movie Central bought the TV rights.

‘The Canadian financing system saved our bacon,’ says Baumgartel. ‘Our strategy was that we were able to begin Canadian financing [to the U.S.] to leverage a bigger budget. But we were hooped by the investment climate at the time.’

Says Dancyger: ‘It was the bottom of the indie market [back in 1998/99] and no one needed to put money into anything. There was a glut of product.’

‘It’s still all about cast,’ says Racz. ‘You really need cast to get financed.’

In the feature that was developed over eight years, Rob LaBelle (Dark Angel) plays a desperate loans manager for the Hebrew National Bank who becomes involved in a money-laundering operation that goes awry, prompting him to stage his own death through an orthodox Chevrah Kadisha, or Jewish burial society. The twisting plot and suspense, the producers hope, will keep audiences guessing to the end.

Jan Rubes (Snow Falling on Cedars) and Allan Rich (Serpico) costar. Local Raymond Massey (Suspicious River) shares an executive producer credit.

From Racz’s perspective, a shady protagonist was a creative challenge. ‘I was interested in bad guys who weren’t black and white, but came from a more interesting place. This is a story about a criminal.’

Shot in February in Vancouver, The Burial Society benefited from a crew willing to work for lower rates. ‘Nobody did it for the money,’ says Racz.

What the producers hadn’t really bargained for was the need to make a film – designed to cater to a commercial audience outside of Canada – into a ‘visibly’ Canadian feature to uphold its Canadian financing.

The producers had to reshoot signs so that French was visible. A reference to the FBI was excised as non-Canadian. LaBelle’s character had to launder Canadian currency. A ‘bug’ or station ID on a television screen in a scene could not have identifiably American call letters, like, WKRP.

While the funders got to fiddle with the details, the producers used a series of focus groups to test the film as it was going through editing.

‘We did select screenings as we went along,’ says Racz. ‘We have an intricate plot and we needed to be sure the ‘ahas’ would fall in the right places.’

The Burial Society will play in the Canadian Images Program of VIFF. In the meantime, the filmmakers are on to their next projects. Baumgartel is developing a drama called The Wolf Within. Dancyger is prepping October production of the Canada/U.K. coproduction of Bleeding by Angus Fraser (Kissed). Racz is working on his new feature The Canyon, a romantic thriller set in L.A.