Each year Canadian producers come to TIFF in hopes of using the high-profile international festival as a launch pad for their features. The Canadian films presented at TIFF are theoretically the cream of the crop – the best of our national cinema.

One measure of the well-being of that cinema has been based on Telefilm Canada’s goal of seeing Canadian features grab 5% of the national box office.

To make this a reality, Telefilm has been pressuring Canadian distributors to get behind Canadian films through better P&A and wider releases. It is, however, becoming obvious that Telefilm’s efforts are not generating the desired results.

The goal of attaining 5% by 2006 is unrealistic, distributors insist. While Canadian films last year grew to 3.8% of Canadian box office, growth this year has stalled. As of early August, total Canadian share was 4%, according to Telefilm. And that’s before the coming round of Oscar hopefuls and Christmas blockbusters begin hitting screens later in the fall.

A pair of big-earners out of Quebec helped last year’s take considerably: La Grande seduction ($8.9 million) and Les Invasions barbares ($7.4 million). Top films thus far – again emerging from Quebec – include Camping Sauvage ($4 million) and Elvis Gratton XXX ($2.5 million). In Quebec, French-Canadian films account for nearly 21% of the market. English-Canadian films in the English market remain at 1%.

Hopefully last year’s English-Canadian TIFF premieres are not an indication of what to expect for the remainder of this year. According to data from the Motion Picture Theatre Associations of Canada, The Saddest Music in the World earned $165,000, Falling Angels generated $82,000 and Republic of Love garnered $53,000, despite mostly positive reviews.

Still, positive signs are beginning to emerge. CHUM’s latest feature, Going the Distance, earned close to $500,000 in its opening weekend. The director, Mark Griffiths, knows the T&A genre well, having helmed a minor hit with post-Porky’s flick Hardbodies in 1984.

Certainly, part of the solution is continuing to produce genre films such as horror, teen comedy and thrillers, which Canada is returning to after nearly two decades of creating more personal auteur-driven features, what some call cultural dramas. But it takes time to develop such project and to bring young filmmakers up to speed. ‘I don’t think 5% is unrealistic at all,’ says one highly placed distributor, who, nevertheless, thinks doing so by 2006 is out of the question. ‘It does take some time. It’s not like everybody had all these great projects in their drawers ready to go and were waiting for Telefilm to signal that it was prepared to invest in them.’

In the meantime, maybe it’s time Telefilm and its federal masters started looking at trying to rebuild Canada’s languishing dramatic programming. Television is the natural feeder for the feature film business. The foundation of Quebec’s star system is based on the broadcast medium and many top French-Canadian actors cut their teeth and continue to do great work in TV including Roy Dupuis, Luc Picard and Remy Girard.

It’s through a successful domestic TV industry that the English-Canadian movie stars of tomorrow will emerge. And, after all, it’s usually to see big-name stars that audiences are willing to fork over $12 or more for a movie.