HALIFAX — The Atlantic Film Festival is predicting big business for the future of the Atlantic Canadian film industry, but things are hardly booming right now.

A study commissioned by the annual festival says its most recent Strategic Partners conference, held in September, stands to generate $181 million in film business over 44 productions, $62.3 million of which is predicted to go into the regional economy over the next four years.

The problem is that production in Atlantic Canada is experiencing a severe drought at the moment, in contrast to the optimism of the study.

‘It’s not about what’s happening right now,’ says Gregor Ash, executive director of the AFF, who expects interprovincial and international coproductions inked at the conference to come to fruition later this year. ‘It’s really about trying to figure out where things are going.’

CEO of the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation Ann MacKenzie acknowledges there has been a slowdown in U.S. productions as a result of the soaring dollar and the ACTRA strike earlier in the year, but is encouraged by the shows going to camera in the summer months.

‘We have three service productions that are looking to start prep before July 1 – two MOWs and one feature film,’ she says. ‘We have a feature film that is in the process of looking. Of course, a 94-cent dollar is bound to start affecting some of those decisions.’ The projects include the Lifetime MOW Lucky Girl.

Elsewhere in Halifax, people are less certain about the future, having not seen a feature or MOW in town since Outlander wrapped in early January.

‘We had a few shows go away that had been shopping around here due to the ACTRA strike,’ says veteran producer Elizabeth Guildford (Trudeau, Outlander). ‘Certainly the dollar is not helping us. It’s keeping some people away.’

Guildford opened a production office this week, however, for The Circuit, an MOW for ABC Family Channel by the U.S. company Von Zernick Sertner, which made the thriller Reversible Errors in Halifax in 2003.

Longtime production coordinator Shauna Hatt (Poor Boy’s Game, Wilby Wonderful) has seen quiet times in the business before, but is especially concerned as she sees technicians moving on to other work and not planning to return.

‘Some of the laborers are working construction,’ she says. ‘I’m sure there are some people who won’t make it [back]. It’s a struggle every year, but it’s just unheard of to be sitting in June without a production office open.’