While Hollywood licks its wounds, Quebec is celebrating a record-breaking summer for indigenous films.

According to film performance tracker Cinéac, Quebec features generated about $17 million at the province’s box office from May 6 to Sept. 5, almost double the cash brought in over the same period last year. This resulted in a 21.7% market share – up from 10.5% in 2004 – and three Quebec-produced features in its top 10 for the season.

TVA Films’ drama C.R.A.Z.Y., which opened on May 27, placed second on the list, generating $5.3 million, followed closely by Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm’s July 8 release Aurore, with $5.2 million. Also from Vivafilm, Horloge biologique came on strong late in the season, bringing in $3.5 million since its Aug. 5 release, placing it at number seven.

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith was the top moneymaker in Quebec over the summer, pulling in $7 million. But overall, box-office numbers were consistent with the rest of the world, dropping 8% in Quebec from 2004 as Hollywood films struggled to attract audiences.

Cinéac VP Matthieu Streliski credits the ’05 domestic surge to higher-quality films coming out of Quebec and the variety of genres, including the socially conscious comedy Horloge and the heavy drama Aurore, which appealed to different people in different areas.

‘People who went to see C.R.A.Z.Y. are not necessarily the same people who went to Aurore,’ he says. ‘While C.R.A.Z.Y. was very strong in Montreal, Aurore did well elsewhere in the province.’

Distributors are becoming more savvy about how to market Quebec films. Aurore, says Streliski, is a good example. Vivafilm saturated the marketplace with teasers before other theatrical releases, and with print, billboard and transit ads, and TV trailers. The push continued long after the film’s release, with a full-page ad in the Sept. 17 weekend edition of La Presse.

‘It was impossible to miss that Aurore was coming in the summer,’ he says. ‘Alliance and Christal Films are doing a lot of big campaigns for their films. TVA did well with [its marketing of] C.R.A.Z.Y. also. Now it is normal to do this.’

Quebec’s previous record for homegrown features came in 2003, when films including Les Invasions barbares and La Grande séduction led to a $15-million summer, with a 17.8% market share. Last summer, Quebec films made less than $9 million, on the backs of features such as Camping sauvage, the highest-grossing Quebec film of 2004, which brought in a final box office of $4.35 million.

Cinéac, formerly Alex Films until purchased by president Simon Beaudry in April, releases quarterly reports on the Quebec box office.