MONTREAL — The former director of the CBC/Radio-Canada miniseries René Lévesque, Giles Walker, has lanced another arrow in his ongoing battle with producer Claudio Luca over his director’s fee: He’s auctioning off the controversial series’ print.

On May 8 there will be a judicial sale of the series’ copyrights, film negative, digital master and sound material, Walker and the Quebec District Council of the Directors Guild of Canada — which has been financing the filmmaker’s legal action against Luca — announced on Wednesday.

‘There’s nothing else we can do,’ Walker told Playback Daily. ‘He’s bound to pay me but he’s not.’

‘As Mr. Luca has indicated that he has no intention of paying Mr. Walker, we have no other choice but to use every means at our disposal in order to ensure that the director receives what he is owed,’ QDC business agent Fortner Anderson said in a statement.

Walker maintains Luca owes him $178,780, the final installment of his director’s fee for his work on the series — including GST, provincial sales tax and interest — which ran on Radio-Canada/CBC in the fall of 2006.

But in a statement yesterday Luca maintains that his company Ciné Télé Action 2 doesn’t owe Walker the money. ‘For reasons that haven’t been made public Ciné Télé Action 2 had to end the director’s contract, hire a new editor and starting the editing process over again. This work was done in large part by Claudio Luca,’ it reads.

But Walker disputes Luca’s claims: ‘In a nutshell Luca did what all showrunners do when they receive a director’s cut. He did what he’s supposed to do and what he’s paid to do. The arbitrator said he didn’t perform the services of a director in any capacity and wasn’t entitled to receie my payment.’

The dispute went to arbitration and arbitrator Sander H. Gibson sided with Walker in a December 2006 ruling. Luca contested that decision but the court ruled in Walker’s favor, as did the Quebec Court of Appeal in October.

‘This whole thing has cost a fortune and taken up two years of my life,’ says Walker. ‘This is a black mark on our industry that we can’t afford. Luca made this film with public money.’

On April 8, the QDC will also submit a complaint to the APFTQ. It believes QDC is in violation of the producer association’s code of ethics.

No one from the APFTQ was available to comment on this article.