Telefilm Canada backed a record number of projects last year – putting $208.3 million into the production, development and marketing of 956 Canadian movies, television, new media and music. And although some new policies caused confusion and ruffled a few feathers, executive director Richard Stursberg says fiscal 2001/02 was ‘a good year.’

On Oct. 17, the federal funding agency released its annual report for the year ending March 31, 2002 – looking back on 12 months that saw the full introduction of the Canada Feature Film Fund, its performance envelopes, and the controversial goal of boosting Canada’s domestic box office.

Telefilm spending rose 17% over the previous year – putting $108.2 million into the Canadian Television Fund’s Equity Investment Program, $10.1 million into new media, $8.5 million into training and promotion, and $61.6 million into the CFFF.

Of those 956 projects, those in English took 65% of the cash; 34% and 1% went into French- and Aboriginal-language productions, respectively. Quebec drew the greatest portion of funding among the regions, with 41% of Telefilm’s total commitments, followed by Ontario (31%), Western Canada (19%) and the Atlantic provinces (9%).

Among EIP-backed projects, production and funding of documentaries and children’s shows jumped, climbing 40% to 449.4 hours ($21.2 million) and 28% to 366.8 hours ($15.7 million), respectively. This compares to 306 hours of drama, which drew $55.3 million, up only slightly in dollars from 369 hours and $55.2 million in fiscal 2001.

Stursberg admits people were ‘somewhat reluctant’ to embrace the new CFFF policies, which seek to raise the domestic box office to 5% by 2006 and which call for, among other things, greater spending from distributors.

Distributors, he says, thought they would be forced to promote a film even if it turned out, on delivery, to be horrible. ‘But if the film’s a failure we’re not going to put money in a failure,’ he explains. ‘When the distributors understood that our interests were completely aligned, that neither of us wanted to waste money, they became much more relaxed….I’m very pleased that for all the films financed in English, all the distributors have been stepping up and putting hard guarantees of P&A on the table.’

He adds that the 5% goal is winning support. ‘Nobody disagrees with the goal,’ he says. ‘Everybody would like to do more commercially successful films.’

He points to several films, including the comedies Men with Brooms and Les Boys 3, as early successes of CFFF policy. Those movies grossed $4.2 million and $4.5 million, respectively.

But some changes will be made. Telefilm had planned to hand out 50% of its CFFF cash through performance envelopes, earmarked for previously successful filmmakers, with the other half going out through the traditional or ‘selective’ application process. Instead, the split was 41% and 59%. Stursberg says Telefilm is rethinking the 50-50 split and will probably make changes in next year’s feature film policy.

Some filmmakers were also surprised to learn they could no longer carry over unused portions of their performance envelopes to the following year. Under government accounting rules, funds unused by the end of a fiscal year are considered ‘lost’ and are usually returned to the Treasury. Telefilm had waived this rule last year, but announced in September that unused portions of performance-envelope funds must now be returned by March 2003. Both the CFPTA and APFTQ have expressed concern.

‘We’re saying ‘Please tell us now and return the money to us.’ And we’ll be able to use it to finance someone else’s picture and that way [we] don’t lose any financing to this lapsing problem.’ He adds that these rules are not new, and have always applied to Telefilm.

Getting Canadians to watch their own movies has been Stursberg’s raison d’etre since taking the executive director job in January. To that end, he was in the U.S. this month on a fact-finding tour of Hollywood, talking to expatriates about how best to boost domestic movies.

‘Several expats expressed interest in helping the film business back home,’ he says. ‘Even people who’ve been there for a long period of time are still very interested and preoccupied with Canada.’

Stursberg met with Ivan Reitman and William Shatner, among others.