Structurally, the Canadian/German/ Israeli coproduction team behind the $2.8-million tragicomedy Metallic Blues is mind-bendingly complex.

Officially, the film is a partnership comprised of Productions Bleu Blanc Rouge, a division of Montreal’s L’Equipe Spectra; Verete Film/Metro Communications/ United King Films (Israel); and Gemini Film (Germany). The funding came from the Israeli Film Fund, distrib United King, and the Israel Cable Program Content Company; Germany’s Hamburg Film Fund; and Telefilm Canada and Quebec’s SODEC, plus The Movie Network, Super Ecran, Movie Central and the film’s Canadian distributor, Equinoxe Films. Metallic Blues also qualified for the full level of tax credits in all three of its partner countries – thanks to coproduction treaties among Canada, Germany and Israel – and is a CAVCO-certified production.

The international flavor of Metallic Blues extends to its plot line. The movie, which traces the misfortunes of two Israeli car salesmen (Israel’s Avi Kushnir and Moshe Ivgy) as they drive a vintage blue limousine from Israel to Germany to sell it for big money, was written, directed and coproduced by Israeli Danny Verete (Yellow Asphalt, Hammsin). Meanwhile, the first producer to sign on to Metallic Blues was Suzanne Girard, president of BBR, followed by Gemini’s Klaus Rettig. Gemini is based in Cologne, near Hamburg, where most of Metallic Blues was shot.

‘Twenty of the film’s 25 days were shot in Hamburg, with the rest being done in Tel Aviv,’ says Rettig, on the phone from Germany. Metallic Blues was subsequently posted at Montreal’s Vision Globale, with the audio being mixed cross-town at Audio Postproduction SPR. Canadian composer Michel Cusson wrote the film’s score.

The journey that led to Metallic Blues’ creation – and its acclaimed screenings at the Jerusalem and Montreal film festivals, with next stop Vancouver – began about two years ago in Tel Aviv.

‘One day a car dealer who is a friend of mine honked outside my window,’ says Verete, on the line from Israel. ‘I looked out and saw eight meters of metallic blue: he had bought this old limousine for a song, and was going to drive it to Germany to sell it as a high-priced collector’s item.’

The misadventures that subsequently ruined his friend’s trip to Germany – he lost money on the deal while living through some harrowing experiences – inspired the film, in which Verete examines the current relationship between Germans and Jews.

‘I am fascinated by the experiences of simple people who take the world as they find it, rather than resorting to philosophy and religion to sort it out,’ he explains. In the case of Metallic Blues, the journey of Shmuel (Kushnir) and Siso (Igvy), as they confront their personal ghosts of the Holocaust while in Germany and interact with modern Germans, allowed the director ‘to examine the themes of reconciliation and hope through the experiences of these simple people.’

The next step in Verete’s own journey was meeting Girard at a coproduction conference in Europe last year.

‘This guy knows how to cut film and tell stories,’ says Girard. ‘As well, Danny is a very dynamic guy the same age as me, who came from a similar background. So it was very easy for us to talk, and that’s when he told me about the concept for Metallic Blues. I responded by saying, ‘Why don’t we buy the limo [a 1970s Lincoln Mark III] in Canada, and then we’ll do the post-production in Montreal?’

The final version of Metallic Blues uses a mix of English and English-subtitled Hebrew. Girard had Verete’s original Hebrew script translated into English, and used this draft to win $325,000 funding from Telefilm, $70,000 from SODEC, and about $200,000 collectively from TMN, Super Ecran, Movie Central and Equinoxe.

‘I was really impressed that Telefilm, SODEC and our other Canadian backers were willing to help underwrite a project that doesn’t use a Canadian locale,’ says Verete. ‘Very few countries are this open to creative film financing.’

All told, Canada has a 25% share in Metallic Blues’ $2.8-million budget (direct funding plus tax credits). Israel provided 55%, with the remaining 20% coming from Germany.

‘Since we were shooting in Hamburg, it only made sense to have a German partner to help us on location. It would have been far more expensive and difficult to have tried to do it all ourselves,’ Verete says. Gemini was attracted to the film because ‘it deals with the old demons between Germans and Jews,’ says Rettig. ‘We really wanted to do this story justice, and we were able to using a German-Israeli film crew.’

According to Girard, once the film has finished ‘building buzz’ on the fest circuit, 35 prints will be struck for release in Israel, with a few more being made for the international art theater market. From there, Metallic Blues will find its way to DVD and finally television.

‘We are hoping to sell the broadcast rights to one of Germany’s public TV broadcasters,’ says Rettig. As for the international deals that made this film happen? ‘It was actually a very simple deal, as coproductions go. We found that we were on the same wavelength as our partners, so the coproduction was a total success.’

-www.bbrproductions.com

-www.geminifilm.de