Montreal: The health of Quebec’s film and TV scene is getting mixed reviews, but everyone agrees it’s been improving steadily since the technicians’ unions buried the hatchet earlier this year.

The protracted turf battle between Quebec’s AQTIS and U.S.-based IATSE over the right to represent Quebec film technicians was scaring off large Hollywood productions, but the temporary agreement brokered in March is being respected, according to Quebec film commissioner Hans Fraikin.

‘The entente is working to a T,’ says Fraikin. ‘This has been the main push for us to get productions back here.’

As part of the agreement, IATSE netted the rights to rep workers on big-budget productions including The Mummy 3 and the remake of Paul Bartel’s cult movie Death Race 2000 (working title: Death Race 3000), both currently in preproduction. AQTIS scored the series The Dead Zone, set to wrap July 31.

Fraikin also points to other feature productions that are keeping local crews busy, including Afterwards, which stars Lost’s Evangeline Lilly and John Malkovich, and is coproduced and distributed by Christal Films in Canada, as well as the homegrown sequel Cruising Bar 2, starring Quebec box-office king Michel Côté. The Muse Productions Tv movie Killer Bees is also slated to begin shooting at the end of July.

The $100-million American thriller The Mummy 3 isn’t shooting until September at Mel’s Cite du Cinema, and Mel Hoppenheim, the owner of Montreal’s main studio facility, says it’s a slow summer.

‘There are only so many big-budget shoots to go around. Yes, we got the Mummy, but Toronto got the Hulk sequel,’ he says.

Hoppenheim acknowledges the province’s thriving indigenous scene, but these aren’t the productions that fill the big soundstages.

‘It’s great that we have a lot of people shooting, but those are smaller films of a few million dollar budgets,’ he says. ‘They are working hand-to-mouth. I’m all for those films, but we’re not booming right now. I have 13 studios. Six are busy right now, but seven are sitting idle.’

Nonetheless, the film boss for a city on the rebound is determined to paint a rosy picture and get the word out that Quebec is back in the game. Fraikin’s perspective is about continued growth. ‘Right now, I’m getting calls from people shooting here who need more workers. If anything, there’s a shortage and demand for film crews,’ he says.

Fraikin says he’s not even anxious about the surging Canadian dollar. He’s already lobbying the Quebec government to have tax credits help offset any increased differences.

Quebec’s post-production sector, meanwhile, represents an area of potential growth for the industry, says Fraikin, pointing to the success of this year’s locally shot 300.

‘300 became a very big hit, and a great deal of the effects in that film were done here in Montreal [at Hybride and Meteor Studios]. Now people are thinking of us not just as a place to shoot, but also as an inexpensive place to generate superb visual effects for their films.’

Some special effects on the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, The Fountain and Silent Hill were also done in Montreal.