Gala Presentation: L’âge des ténèbres (Days Of Darkness)
Director/Writer: Denys Arcand
Producers: Denise Robert, Daniel Louis
Cast: Marc Labrèche, Diane Kruger, Thierry Ardisson, Laurent Baffie, Christian Bégin, Beno&icirct Brière
Distributor: Vivafilm
International Sales: Studio Canal

It is one of the most closely watched follow-up acts in the history of Canadian cinema.

After Denys Arcand and Denise Robert brought an Oscar home to Quebec in 2004 for Les invasions barbares (The Barbarian Invasions), the director-producer team had become the dynamic duo. They were at the summit.

It proved to be a lonely place while the pair was making this year’s TIFF Gala entry, L’âge des ténèbres (Days of Darkness), as they lived under a media microscope in la belle province that occasionally got nasty. Nonetheless, Robert, head of Cinémaginaire, says that she and Arcand did not concern themselves with their last show. It was on to the next.

‘When Denys thinks of an idea, he likes to let it simmer in his head,’ says the producer, whose trademark is no-nonsense directness. ‘He had already concocted the idea for this film before he shot Les invasions barbares.’

Set in the near future, L’âge des ténèbres tells the rather grim story of a government bureaucrat (Marc Labrèche) who is so disenchanted with his dreary career and personal life that he imagines himself as a sexy superstar.

L’âge des ténèbres – which premiered as the closing-night film of this year’s Cannes film festival – is the third in Arcand’s loose trilogy that began with The Decline of the American Empire, garnering Arcand and his former producer Roger Frappier their first Oscar nomination in 1986. Arcand followed Decline with Jesus of Montreal (which garnered the director and Frappier another Oscar nom in 1989), and only returned to the trilogy with Invasions, when Robert became his producer and life partner.

Arcand’s Oscar cachet only seemed to pump up the volume during the shoot for L’âge des ténèbres, when the $8.5-million production got caught in the crossfire of a film funding crisis in Quebec.

There simply wasn’t enough money in the provincial and federal funding coffers to support Quebec’s ever-expanding film industry, despite the fact that an extraordinary 20% of Quebec’s screen time is homegrown cinema, which sells tickets, makes money and meets every government mandate ever written.

But the funding crisis grew nasty, and personal, as the film community received the equivalent of ‘pink slips’ from funders, while Robert and producing partner Daniel Louis got what they had requested.

Many in the province’s film milieu were irked that Robert was able to draw money from both Telefilm Canada’s selective envelope as well as its performance envelope, which rewards previous box-office performance. The money from the latter stream went towards Yves Desgagnés’ commercially minded feature Roméo et Juliette.

Meanwhile, with limited funds available, notable directors such as Robert Lepage (Le confessional, Tectonic Plates) were out of luck on their projects.

On July 5, 2006, Montreal’s major French-language daily La Presse published an open letter denouncing government film-funding policy, specifically questioning why so much of Telefilm’s funds went to Robert’s prodco. The letter was signed by 43 directors, including Lepage and Léa Pool, both of whom, notably, had worked with Robert in the past. Robert says she was ‘deeply hurt’ and failed to understand why it became personal.

‘I don’t understand why people were attacking me for doing my job,’ says the pragmatic filmmaker. ‘My job as a producer is to get money for the directors I’m working with so they can make their films. That’s what I was doing.’

Yet many wondered aloud why the Oscar duo couldn’t have derived more of their investment from foreign producers and distributors after the global success of Invasions. For instance, why not get some coin from Miramax?

‘Miramax didn’t invest in Invasions barbares,’ Robert explains. ‘They came on board with that film after it screened at Cannes. People don’t rush to invest in subtitled films; that’s not how it works. Most of those deals came later with Invasions, and that’s the way we knew it was going to work with L’âge des ténèbres, too.’

Robert says the Quebec industry should focus its energy on forcing the government to increase funding levels, and take action, like she did.

Knowing that a provincial election was imminent last summer, Robert and several other key producers – among them Frappier (on TIFF’s feature film jury this year) and C.R.A.Z.Y. producer Pierre Even – met with provincial and federal levels of government to begin loud lobbying for increased funding levels.

Bev Oda, the Conservative heritage minister who was recently replaced by Josée Verner, listened to the producers but didn’t cough up any new coin. But Quebec’s Liberal government heard the message loud and clear, and added $10 million in additional film funding to SODEC’s annual budget. However, Robert doesn’t gloat.

‘This is a delicate success that we have right now,’ she says. ‘We don’t want to go back to a situation where people are leaving because there’s no opportunity here.’

Ironically, Quebec’s film industry is the envy of every other province in the country.