MONTREAL — From the makers of hit teen movie A vos marques…party! to the cheeky indie flick Bluff, more Quebec producers are bringing their projects to life without help from SODEC and Telefilm Canada, by cutting costs and pulling in extra investors in a bid to keep their projects fresh.

The cash to make the $1.3-million Le cas Roberge — a Go Films feature based on an online series — was, for example, cobbled together from private investors and specialty channel Super Écran, explains producer Nicole Robert (Tout est parfait).

‘I wanted to do this film right now to capitalize on the popularity of the video clips. But it means that the film had to be very low-budget,’ says Robert from the set, which recently began its four-week shoot. ‘The funding system for making features is so overwhelmed these days. And it’s slow. We likely wouldn’t have got the green light on the first try.’

Robert, whose budget was rounded out with $100,000 from Ford Motor Company, also believes the SODEC/Telefilm system can water down ideas. ‘Often we have to submit the same project a number of times. Reworking a script isn’t always good. It can lose the magic of the first draft.’

She likes the flexibility of a low-budget shoot, despite the limited resources. ‘I have one person doing artistic direction. And one costume person. The quality of this kind of film really depends on the script.’

While Robert did use some public money in the form of tax credits — Super Écran also dipped into CTF cash — the much-talked about Bluff was made with no public money. Like Robert, producers Marc-André Lavoie and Simon Olivier Fecteau didn’t even try to get cash from Telefilm and SODEC.

‘We didn’t think we’d get financing. And I was able to earn enough money working to take some time to write the script,’ explains 31-year-old Fecteau. ‘We edited the first cut on a laptop.’

The pair shot the $250,000 film — which follows the lives of tenants living in the same apartment over 15 years — in HD. Despite the fact that actors were paid minimum union rates, Fecteau and Lavoie were able to attract some big-name talent, including Isabelle Blais (Borderline), Rémy Girard (Les Bougons) and Emmanuel Bilodeau (René Lévesque).The film grossed $700,000 at the box office.

And it’s not just the producers of low-budget fare. Christal Films’ $2.5-million A vos marques…Party! was financed mainly by Super Écran, although SODEC kicked in at the post-production phase. ‘We did use tax-credit money. But almost all the budget was from Super Écran,’ says Christal Films spokeswoman Julie Armstrong-Boileau.

More than half of the Canadian component of the budget for the $7.5-million coproduction (90% Canada, 10% France) Le bonheur de Pierre (Pierre’s Happiness) comes from the private sector, explains producer Claude Bonin of I Studio Cinema Television. ‘Roughly 39% comes from our production company and 16% from a private investor.’

The film, which wrapped up its Quebec shoot this winter, was rejected by SODEC and Telefilm, although the producers did obtain tax credits and received $300,000 under the federal funder’s coproduction treaty agreement.

Pierre’s Happiness was tailor-made to attract outside investors because it’s a comedy featuring big-name actors Pierre Richard and Rémy Girard, who will draw audiences in both Quebec and France. ‘The French market is 10 times larger than the Quebec one. We couldn’t have raised the money if we were only doing a film that would be released in Quebec,’ says Bonin.

Fecteau views the making of Bluff as a learning experience. ‘For a first film it was excellent. But it requires so much effort,’ he says.

Although he hopes to get Telefilm and SODEC funding for his next film, Fecteau believes more and more young filmmakers will opt to make films on the cheap. ‘The technology is there. Bluff looks like it cost more than it did. And kids these days are savvy. They film their family vacations and edit the footage and post it on the Internet.’