Robin Cass
Producer and founding partner, Triptych Media

Toronto producer Robin Cass says he takes some proprietary pride in the story option arm of The Harold Greenberg Fund, as he is the one who pitched the idea to Astral Media. The initiative launched in 2001, and has benefited several Canadian producers, Cass among them.

Last year, Triptych was able to secure the rights to In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son’s Journey to Understand His Father’s Legacy by Ken Wiwa – the life story of the author’s father, Nigerian anti-oil industry activist Ken Saro-Wiwa – which it plans to shoot under the title Half a Million Heroes next year. According to Cass, this wouldn’t have been possible without the aid of the fund.

‘Half a Million Heroes is a significant rights acquisition for us,’ says Cass. ‘It was a complex deal, and [the fund] made it possible for that project to continue. We were able to sign the deal just before for we left for Cannes this year, and we had those rights sewn up. It led to a bunch of meetings at Cannes that I think will lead to something really terrific.’

Cass says the fund – in addition to helping the prodco at various stages on films including The Bay of Love and Sorrows and The Republic of Love – also made possible Triptych’s rights acquisition of the novel A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright and the Canadian stage play High Life by Lee MacDougall.

‘The hardest thing to do is raise first money, and, given the fact that we are an industry that is typically operated by production companies that are not capitalized, people are digging deep into their pockets to find money to secure rights, and it is money that is gambled,’ says Cass. ‘We all have to participate and stake ourselves on the things that we believe in and go to the wall for the projects we want to get made, but it is really great to go to the fund for assistance with that.’

Michael Souther
Producer, Amaze Film + Televison

Michael Souther produced Michael McGowan’s crowd-pleasing 2004 feature Saint Ralph with help from The Harold Greenberg Fund. The HGF has also helped other Amaze projects through various streams.

‘The Harold Greenberg Fund has been an incredible supporter in what we all know is the most difficult time to move projects forward financially, and that’s through the development process,’ says Souther. ‘On Saint Ralph, it supported us all the way – through development and then with equity investment in the film.

‘The fund has been actively involved on other projects through development. We’ve accessed both the Family Film Program [for Finn on the Fly] as well as the Script Development Program, and it has helped us secure the rights to some properties so we can package them together with some writers, which we are in the process of doing right now [with 2004 ReLit Award winner Still Life with June by Darren Greer]. For a small company, that is important. The team over there understands what we’re trying to do and is supportive at so many key points along the way.’

Mark Musselman
Head of business and legal affairs, Serendipity Point Films

Mark Musselman says that although several features from Serendipity Point have received development funding from The Harold Greenberg Fund, its current production is a shining example of how the fund helps films reach the finish line.

Serendipity Point – which has benefited from HGF funding on features including Where the Truth Lies, The Statement, Ararat and Men with Brooms – acquired the rights to Anne Michaels’ novel Fugitive Pieces in 1999, and has spent the last seven years in development before finally going into production in April with director Jeremy Podeswa.

‘Throughout that long development period, The Harold Greenberg Fund has been there and supported us repeatedly,’ says Musselman, adding that HGF also has equity in Pieces.

He says that because of the nature of the Canadian film business, with filmmakers relying heavily on public sources for investment, producers generally have a difficult time nursing multiple productions at once.

‘The fund plays a very important role in trying to assist producers in surviving the development process, to get them to a point where they can pull the trigger on the right project at the right time,’ he says.

Musselman adds that he appreciates the sensitivity HGF staffers show towards producers’ deadlines.

‘They make appropriate demands when required, but they have also shown themselves to be extremely flexible and realistic when it comes to understanding the practicalities of what happens when,’ says Musselman. ‘We have found them to be flexible, supportive and collaborative, while protecting their own mandates.’

Nicholas Tabarrok
President, Darius Films

Nicholas Tabarrok of Toronto’s Darius Films says his forthcoming feature Weirdsville, helmed by Allan Moyle, will have locked picture around late June. The project was bolstered with assistance from The Harold Greenberg Fund.

‘[The fund] is absolutely an essential service. It has been a great supporter of Canadian film, and a major contributor to Darius’ success over the years,’ says Tabarrok. ‘They had money in The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico and Weirdsville. With Weirdsville, especially, the money was needed. They have supported me in development for years.’

Sudz Sutherland
Writer/director

Sudz Sutherland, the award-winning Toronto-based director of Love, Sex and Eating the Bones and CTV MOW Doomstown, recently received funding from The Harold Greenberg Fund’s Script Development Program for his basketball feature The Way the Ball Bounces.

‘The fund gives me time to not have to worry about paying bills and just work on a script,’ says Sutherland. ‘Also, if there is a story editor that I am working with, [my producer and I] can pay their fee to have somebody to bounce ideas off – someone who is actually looking intently at the script, as opposed to your fellow writers whom you may give it to for opinions. It is this person’s job to look at the script and ask you questions – these questions lead to better drafts.’

The fund also helped Sutherland and his producer, Jennifer Holness (also his wife), with equity money on Love, Sex and Eating the Bones.

‘It is nice that Astral gives something back,’ he says. ‘It’s something that is sustaining the industry, because if a lot of writers don’t get money, they don’t write, and they can’t pursue their ideas in any real way. We need private money, not just public.’

Suzanne French
VP, children’s and family, Shaftesbury Films

Suzanne French is the producer of Shaftesbury Films’ new Family Channel series Life with Derek, which received equity financing from The Harold Greenberg Fund’s Family Film Program, open to both family-oriented features and TV series.

‘The Harold Greenberg Fund’s support is invaluable for getting shows off the ground in the kids world,’ says French. ‘They’ve been with us since the very beginning, and that has been great. It contributes part of the overall financing picture. It’s not the majority of the financing, but it is an important piece when you’re scrambling to put together that last bit of the budget. That last piece is the hardest to get – that small amount that will push you over the top and let you pull the trigger into production.’

French adds that The Fund is thankfully easy to navigate.

‘We’re huge fans of the Greenberg fund because it is very clear. It’s not cumbersome or bureaucratic,’ she says. ‘You can always get the right people on the phone.’

Gregor Ash
Executive director, Atlantic Film Festival

Although The Harold Greenberg Fund is best known for its support of film and TV projects, it also assists personal development initiatives, as evidenced by its partnership with the Atlantic Film Festival through HGF’s Training Grants stream. The fund has been on board with the AFF’s script development program for more than a decade.

‘It was something we started to provide a development opportunity for regional writers in Atlantic Canada – to give them a leg up in terms of creating an indigenous group of stay-at-home writers,’ explains AFF executive director Gregor Ash.

For the first 10 years of its relationship with the fund, the AFF’s script program was dedicated to developing one-off half-hour and feature scripts, then workshopping and showcasing the scripts at the festival.

‘This year, after feedback from the community, we’ve focused it more on feature film and more senior-level writers… calling it Inspired Scripts,’ says Ash. ‘We’ve got good writers down here and good filmmakers, and we’re trying to figure out what role we play as a festival, with Greenberg as one of our strong partners.’

Denise Robert
President and producer, Cinemaginaire

It was difficult putting together financing for a film many perceived to be about death, even with Denys Arcand attached to direct, says producer Denise Robert – also Arcand’s wife ­- but Le Fonds Harold Greenberg came aboard Les Invasions barbares as an equity partner regardless.

Invasions was Arcand’s follow-up to 2000’s Stardom, which was not met with many favorable reviews, so that, coupled with Invasions’ surface morbidity, made it a hard sell.

‘There was very negative reaction,’ says Robert, who produced Stardom with Robert Lantos. ‘It was very difficult putting the money together [for Invasions]… so every dollar you could get was very important and made a difference in the kinds of actors we could hire, the kinds of sets we could build, the number of days we could shoot and so on.’

With the support of Greenberg, the film went on to win the Academy Award for best foreign-language feature of 2003, and a virtual trophy case of festival honors, Genie Awards and Prix Jutra. Since, the HGF has supported Cinemaginaire’s smash comedy Mambo Italiano, coming in during the development phase.

Robert says even for her company – which many feel is among the top players in Canada – the fund is an ‘essential’ service.

‘The money that comes in is basically used for developing projects, so quite often when you do financing, The Harold Greenberg Fund makes the difference of whether a film will get made or not,’ says Robert. ‘And it makes a difference in the quality of the film you’re going to make.’

Luc Déry
Producer, micro_scope

The feature Congrorama, which closed the Director’s Fortnight in Cannes, received some all-important development funding from Le Fonds Harold Greenberg.

‘They are an invaluable partner,’ says producer Luc Déry. ‘They don’t necessarily come in with huge amounts, but they are one of the few funds that will close little gaps you have in your financing.’

Déry says he appreciates not only the financial initiatives of Le Fonds, but also the fact that it offers coverage and readers’ reports of its selected scripts – one of the fringe benefits that comes with its support in development.

‘Over the years I’ve found these very valuable and true in their analysis,’ says Déry of the detailed, four- or five-page reports. ‘[Le Fonds] has a good pool of readers, and we’ve been very keen on getting these reports. They are very useful and generally contribute toward the development of better scripts.’