An industry group led by Montreal Jazz Festival organizer L’Équipe Spectra will this year launch a new film festival in Montreal with approximately $1 million from Telefilm Canada and SODEC, funds previously earmarked for Serge Losique’s World Film Festival.

The move is the latest exchange in the battle between WWF and its former backers, which pulled their support from the Montreal fest last year.

‘The choice we are announcing today marks the end of a process and the beginning of a great adventure that will be of primary benefit to local industry members and moviegoers,’ said Telefilm chair Charles Belanger in a Dec. 17 release.

The Spectra proposal was one of four submitted and represents ‘an alliance of the who’s who of moviemaking in Montreal,’ says Spectra president and director general Alain Simard. ‘We always said we wanted to work in collaboration with everyone else and rally everyone around the same vision.’

Although the decision has created tension with the WFF, Simard says one of the goals of the new event is to bring Quebec’s filmmaking community together.

For example, Daniel Langlois, who had submitted his own application to Telefilm and SODEC on behalf of the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, which he chairs, will sit on the new festival’s board.

Despite Langlois’ involvement in the new venture, the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma will go forward this year, alongside the soft launch of the new unnamed event. Its official inaugural season is planned for 2006.

‘Langlois agreed to be on our board to work towards establishing the new festival, but also to make sure that the new event will complement the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, not compete with it,’ says Simard.

In fact, the new event and the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma will run simultaneously in the fall and will share venues and a common market.

Telefilm and SODEC issued a call for proposals in September, after the agencies announced that they would no longer finance the WFF, which has been running for almost three decades.

The other proposal came from a partnership between the Just For Laughs Festival and Vision Globale, which runs Montreal’s Fantasia festival. While the two initially submitted separate proposals, they joined forces in November after Telefilm and SODEC requested that all proposals be revamped and resubmitted.

The WFF has announced that it too will go forward with its 29th festival in 2005, despite losing 15% to 20% of its budget previously made up from the federal and Quebec agencies, bringing the number of major film festivals on Montreal’s 2005 schedule up to three.

Losique’s fest has already announced that Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos will be the head of its international jury. The announcement came on Dec. 10, the same day that the WFF filed a lawsuit against Telefilm in Quebec Superior Court.

The fest is suing the federal agency for $2.5 million in damages and is seeking an injunction to halt its plans to create the new festival. WFF alleges that the agency deliberately damaged the reputation of the WFF and that its attempt to funnel money elsewhere is illegal.

Telefilm and SODEC’s decision to look for another funding candidate was partially in response to a July study of Canada’s major film festivals, with which WFF refused to cooperate. The study criticized the WFF for lacking transparency with public funds, strained relationships with the film community and falling attendance.