MONTREAL — Pierre Karl Péladeau plans to invest $2.5 million in order to digitize hundreds of Quebec feature films for broadcast on his VOD digichannel Illico.

Speaking to the press on Monday, the president and CEO of Quebecor announced that he will, over the next five years, spend $500,000 annually to fund his brainchild, entitled Elephant: mémoire du cinéma québécois (‘Elephant: Memory of Quebec Cinema’). Although the database will ultimately comprise 800 features, only around 25 will be digitized when the project is launched, likely in November.

‘Films are an incredibly important part of our heritage,’ said Péladeau, speaking at Montreal’s Ex-Centris cinema complex. ‘Our films are a reflection of who we are. Quebecers all recognize themselves in the work of Jutra and other filmmakers. It’s important that these films are accessible to everyone.’

Details remain vague, however. Péladeau did not cite any particular titles or provide details such as pricing.

To watch, Illico subscribers will pay a fee that will likely be a ‘little less than that for non-Quebec films,’ says one of the project’s supervisors, screenwriter and director Claude Fournier (Deux femmes en or).

Fournier will be steering the Elephant ship with film producer and historian Marie-José Raymond (The Book of Eve). Former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard, filmmaker Michel Brault and actor Rémy Girard are among those on the project’s advisory committee.

Universities and libraries will have free access to the cache of films. The project also includes plans to create a database of Quebec films on Quebecor’s Canoe website. ‘We are very proud of this initiative. This project will give Quebecers a chance to rediscover their own movies and learn more about the people who made them,’ says Péladeau.

Although Quebecor will funnel most of the revenue to existing rights holders, the announcement sparked a heated discussion at the conference about compensation to creators, led by auteur filmmaker Marc André Forcier (Au clair de la lune). ‘We need to think about ways to better compensate the writers and directors,’ said Forcier. ‘It just doesn’t make sense that our stuff can be used in perpetuity and we don’t get additional compensation.’

Péladeau confirmed a report in last week’s La Presse newspaper that he is meeting Quebec TV producers to drum up support for his Quebecor Fund proposal, which is currently being studied by the CRTC. Quebecor, which temporarily pulled its monthly contribution from the Canadian Television Fund last January in protest, wants to pump more than $35 million per year into a new private fund to finance Canadian television programming. Videotron puts roughly $19 million into CTF each year and complains that it’s is poorly managed.

Péladeau submitted his proposal for the fund — which would be under the control of Quebecor — to the CRTC and Heritage Minister Bev Oda. Quebecor would hold the copyright to everything the fund finances.