CHUM’s Paul Gratton is VP and GM of Space: The Imagination Station and Drive-In Classics and station manager of Bravo! NewStyleArtsChannel. At Banff he will be sitting on a State of Television panel for a session entitled National Cinema – Box Office or Broadcast?, which explores realistic objectives in developing Canuck movies, particularly in English Canada.

How’s this for a box-office grabber? Morose, screwed-up, middle-aged adult returns to the small town where he or she was born, broods a lot, and then confronts the parent, friend or guardian who messed up his or her life (through alcoholism, incest, pedophilia, lack of communication, or neglect – take your pick).

Sound depressing? Does this plot outline make you want to reach into your pocket and cough up 12 or 13 bucks? Yet a good half-dozen English-Canadian feature films that appeared on the festival circuit last fall had exactly that same storyline. Some were carefully observed and heartfelt. Some were just boring. But no national cinema can hope to attain any level of commercial success (let alone a box-office goal of 5%) on a steady diet of unremitting existential angst, with central characters who are dysfunctional losers.

This is something that Quebec cinema has instinctively understood. To sustain an industry, support creativity and develop audiences, a wide range of motion pictures must be offered to the public and properly marketed.

The very best of personal, auteur cinema does continue to thrive in Quebec (such as Denys Arcand’s Cannes Film Festival triumph Les Invasions Barbares) and new talent continues to be nurtured (producer Roger Frappier makes a point of supporting original voices such as Manon Briand, director of La Turbulence des Fluides). But there is also lots of room given to broad romantic comedies (Nuit de Noces), hockey (Les Boys I-III), populist melodrama (Seraphin) and even biker flicks (Hochelaga).

In modifying its policies for English-Canadian film investment, Telefilm Canada has not turned its back on the best of auteur cinema. It is simply trying to broaden the kinds of films that it supports, to come to the market each year with a wider slate of pictures. In a sense, it is looking to enlarge the traditional definition of film culture in English Canada, to include, for example, some comedies and genre films.

In this context, movies such as Men with Brooms and Fubar are seen as being as culturally relevant to English-Canadian audiences as the personal therapy movies that get raves in Berlin and then play a week or two at the Carlton Cinemas in Toronto.

Clearly, with the resources available to our industry, we cannot hope to compete head-on with Hollywood studios. Yet lower-budget comedies and genre films can click with audiences if they are ingenious, entertaining and well marketed. From The Blair Witch Project to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, it is still possible to make successful movies on limited budgets with little or no star power.

But marketing is key, and television can have a role to play in bringing Canadian movies to the attention of filmgoing audiences.

Branded movie releases have been very successful in the United States, particularly when they involve demographically targeted specialty channels. Paramount (Viacom) has been particularly adept at turning cable brands such as Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and especially MTV (which helped turn obscure little titles such as Save the Last Dance and Better Luck Tomorrow into significant box-office winners) into ‘Good Housekeeping seals of approval’ for specific marketing purposes.

That is why CHUM has embarked upon a series of film promotion and production initiatives that are designed to support broad theatrical releases in English Canada. Alliance Atlantis and MuchMusic have joined forces to bring the youth-oriented feature Foolproof to a theatre near you, backed by a $2-million ad campaign. Producer Tom Berry and Space: The Imagination Station will present the THINKFilm release of a decidedly twisted teen sci-fi horror flick entitled Decoys later this summer. And that is why CHUM Television is about to begin shooting its first made-in-Canada MuchMusic rock ‘n roll road movie this summer. After all, culture comes in many packages.

Not all of these new films will necessarily be successful in finding their audiences, but all of them are specifically conceived to appeal to a very targeted cross section of regular moviegoers. They are designed to be broadly released on many screens. And they are backed by major marketing and specialty channel-branded promotional campaigns, not to mention the usual CHUM marketing support through such vehicles as MovieTelevision and Startv.

Not all Canadian feature films warrant this type of expensive marketing push, of course. But the English-Canadian theatrical marketplace can easily absorb three or four broad-based Men with Brooms-type releases a year.

Just as they’ve managed to do in Quebec, let’s make going to Canadian movies an entertaining joy, rather than a patriotic duty.

Let’s put some fun into going to Canadian movies.

-www.chumlimited.com