Montreal: As with other film production centers across Canada, Quebec has been feeling the pinch in the reversal of fortune of guest productions. This year has seen a substantial decline in foreign shoots coming to la belle province.

‘We’ve seen a decrease in the number of productions, the volume is down, and the productions are smaller than we’re used to,’ concedes Martine-Andree Racine, director of the Quebec Film & TV Office. Racine says that the first six months of 2004 have yielded $100 million in foreign production spending in Quebec, down from $200 million in the same period last year.

But while a drop by half sounds drastic, Racine urges caution in reading too much into those numbers. ‘2003 was an exceptional year,’ she points out. ‘There really wasn’t any way we could have maintained quite that high a level of production.’

Volume figures are very much project-driven. Last year saw the blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow (with a reported budget of US$125 million) wrap in Montreal. Other sizeable Hollywood projects that shot here in 2003 include: Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio; the Christmas film Noel, directed by Chazz Palminteri and featuring Robin Williams, Penelope Cruz and Susan Sarandon; Gothika starring Halle Berry; and Taking Lives with Angelina Jolie.

There has been some guest production action this year, but on a smaller scale, with titles including Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain with Hugh Jackman and the Disney golfing flick The Greatest Game Ever Played, helmed by Bill Paxton.

Complicating matters is the loonie’s continuing gain on the U.S. dollar, and an increasing number of American states, including Louisiana and Pennsylvania, that have begun attracting films that might have otherwise come north by offering Canadian-style tax incentives. And the political backlash against ‘runaway production’ is becoming increasingly prominent, spearheaded by the likes of movie-star-cum-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic leader John Kerry.

To underline the importance of film and TV production in Quebec, SODEC recently coordinated a report on the sector’s economic impact. The results, released earlier this year, found that film and TV directly employ 35,000 in the province, ranking it among the top sectors. The study also shows that 17% of production spending in the province between 1998 and 2002 was from foreign projects, and 11% from coproductions.

Racine adds that the QFTVO is continuing to promote Quebec as a convenient and inexpensive shooting site with state-of-the-art studios and the capability for high-end production values. ‘We’re going to work to increase our quality and profile at the same time,’ she says.

To this end, the QFTVO sent three Quebec film industry reps to the American Film Market in Los Angeles earlier this month, armed with a new CD-ROM full of information about locations and other benefits to shooting in Quebec.

As well, the Quebec government and several municipalities have combined resources to host a forum on new ways to market the province abroad as a shooting destination. Titled Le Forum metropolitain de l’industrie cinematographique, the meeting will take place on Nov. 29 in Montreal. Forum organizers have invited a broad range of industry professionals to brainstorm about how to best assure that shoots continue to land in Quebec. Francois Macerola, VP of commercial affairs at Cirque du Soleil, former Telefilm Canada head and Cancon report author, will preside over the event.

Many in Quebec’s film community are also wondering what impact the still-unresolved dispute between the APFTQ and the Alliance of American Motion Picture and Television Producers may have had on the decline of foreign shoots. The conflict arose in 2003, when U.S. producers argued that they should be able to deal directly with various Quebec service-industry unions, as opposed to having to negotiate through the APFTQ. The matter is now in appeal at a Quebec administrative tribunal, with a ruling expected by early December.

‘The differences we had with the American producers had nothing to do with [the service decline],’ argues Claire Samson, president and CEO of the APFTQ. ‘The fact is, we are grappling with the effects of a stronger dollar. As well, there is added competition with other states and European countries, which are now offering tax incentives. Many Americans don’t like runaway production because they fear that local jobs have been lost.’

Despite a wave of negative publicity surrounding the APFTQ-AAMPTP impasse, Samson insists her group did the right thing by standing firm.

‘Seventy percent of production in Quebec is done by Quebec producers. If we start allowing American producers to get services for less, that is not fair. Not one American producer guaranteed that they would come to Quebec to shoot if they were allowed to bypass the collective agreement procedure.’

-www.apftq.qc.ca

-www.sodec.gouv.qc.ca