‘It’s harder and easier at the same time,’ says Hans Fraikin, film commissioner for the Quebec Film and Television Council, referring to the state of film production in his province. The good news first: there is a lot more soft money available.

Eighteen months ago, the Charest Liberals injected $10 million into provincial funder SODEC’s budget – a 40% increase in available local production financing. In January 2009, the government expanded the provincial service production tax credit from 25% of labor costs to cover 25% of the entire Quebec spend, including hotels, vehicle rentals and travel within the province.

Everyone knows the principal piece of bad news. Thanks to the international financial meltdown, ‘in terms of hard money, every jurisdiction is in the same situation,’ says Fraikin. ‘It’s harder to negotiate a minimum guarantee. It’s a tougher market for distributors, which means there’s less money for P&A. And there are fewer presale dollars. Ten years ago you could get a million for a TV series. Now you’re lucky if you can get $100,000.’

Further, Canada is losing ground on one of its traditional strengths: coproduction.

Generous intra-Europe coproduction schemes are leaving Quebec producers on the sidelines, so they’re taking a greater interest in their own continent. French-language films may dominate the Canadian box office, but when it comes to exports there is no comparison.

Mindful of the statistics, Quebec producers are catching on to the idea that they have to export – which means making more films in English. ‘The francophone pie is limited,’ says Fraikin. ‘A film in English can be sold to the whole world.’

Fraikin points to this month’s American Film Market in Los Angeles, where the QFTC has led a mission for the past few years. ‘Our primary mandate is to attract foreign production, and yet we are getting more requests from Quebec producers than ever before. They are tapping into us for those contacts.’

Quebecois producers joining Fraikin in L.A. include Jonathan Vanger, a producer with Claude Léger’s Montreal-based Transfilm, and André Rouleau of Montreal’s Caramel Films. Rouleau most recently coproduced the Montreal-shot English-language Canada/France copro Die with Toronto-based Don Carmody.

Other recent Quebec productions in English include Jacob Tierney’s TIFF title The Trotsky, produced by dad Kevin Tierney’s Park Ex Pictures, and the $28-million Barney’s Version. Although Robert Lantos’ Serendipity Point Films is the name producer on the project, Fraikin says the 80-20 Canada/Italy coproduction is overwhelmingly Quebec financed.

As Arnie Gelbart of Montreal-based Galafilm points out, English-language production in the province presents a double-edged sword.

‘Getting equity money from SODEC is difficult. There’s a cap on English-language production at 20% and, in practice, it’s more like 10% because it’s discretionary. And you can only hire one person from outside of Quebec.’ Gelbart says that makes it difficult to cast, given the narrow talent pool of English actors in the province.

His solution seems to come in human form: Noël Mitrani, the Toronto-born French filmmaker who relocated to Canada via Montreal. Mitrani has just wrapped shooting an English-language title,

The Kate Logan Affair, with U.S. starlet Alexis Bledel from Gilmore Girls in the lead.

Gelbart would like to see the federal government up its commitment on the soft-money side.

‘The federal tax credit is laughable,’ he says, referring to the current practice of ‘grinding down’ the federal credit as a production accrues provincial and other credits. End that practice and producers not just in Quebec but in every province would benefit.