Two sides to Ceeb story

‘I think they have banked on making money in this period before Hockey Night in Canada.’
-Canadian Media Guild president Lise Lareau suggests CBC’s plan all along was to save money during the staff lockout before reaching an agreement in time for the NHL season

‘We did this [lockout] because it was absolutely necessary. Unfortunate, but necessary. It’s not a way to make money, and to suggest so is absolutely false.’
-CBC spokesperson Jason MacDonald responds

Broadcasters get serious?

‘We suspect that this is a blip given the timetable for CRTC licence renewals… If and when those licences are extended, unfortunately we’re going to see broadcasters return to their ways, which means trying to produce as little as possible and simulcast U.S. product.’
-Stephen Waddell, national executive director of ACTRA, on the surge in drama series production

‘From here on in we’ll be looking at drama very seriously.’
-Anne-Marie Varner, the since-departed head of Canadian production at Global TV

‘For the longest time we’ve done the Geminis, paid for them. We think there has to be a shared responsibility [in the industry]. I’m very happy that Global has decided to do it.’
-Slawko Klymkiw, CBC’s departing executive director of network programming, on the Gemini Awards’ move to Global Television from CBC

‘The real drama crisis is the fact that Canadians are not watching drama. If they’re not watching, it doesn’t matter how much you’re making,’
-Richard Stursberg, CBC executive VP of English television, on the apparent end to the Canadian drama crisis

‘It may be people aren’t so interested in docudramas that date all the way back to the 1940s.’
-Stursberg on the disappointing ratings for CBC’s Trudeau II: Maverick in the Making

Takeover concerns

‘It puts a lot of power in the hands of Cineplex Galaxy. Our members have serious concerns about the situation.’
-Ted East, president of the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters, at the time of Cineplex’s purchase of Famous Players

Three’s a crowd in Montreal

‘They are trying to crush us.’
-World Film Festival boss Serge Losique on L’Équipe Spectra’s plans to start a Montreal film festival of its own

‘Let’s wait and see if there really are three. There’s definitely room for two.’
-New Montreal FilmFest programmer Moritz de Hadeln incorrectly suggests WFF wouldn’t be back in 2005

‘It’s of great concern to me. How do you know where you can maximize your media exposure? With two larger festivals and one smaller one – all within about two months – it’s a bit ridiculous. The press is going to be exhausted.’
-A Montreal filmmaker on the quandary faced by producers with three local festivals

‘I had the very strange experience… of walking down a red carpet where I was the only person in sight. No cheering crowd. No journalists. No cameras.’
-Atom Egoyan on his arrival at the ill-fated New Montreal FilmFest

‘The point of this was for Montreal to look like we were organized, not to look stupid.’
-L’Équipe Spectra president Alain Simard on the scheduling conflicts that marred the NMFF

Time to go shopping

‘I’m pleased that Water will premier here at home… now we’ll just have to figure out what to wear.’
-Deepa Mehta at the announcement that her film Water would open TIFF

The service biz

‘We’re seeing around $200 million in new activity that we can attribute directly to the tax-credit increase.’
-Donna Zuchlinski, manager of film at the Ontario Media Development Corporation, on a turnaround in service business in Toronto

‘If they are not competitive [with Ontario], Vancouver will become a wasteland. There will be a mass exodus. For anyone budgeting Canada, they can’t compare Ontario and B.C.’
-Brightlight Pictures’ partner Shawn Williamson threatens to move US$100 million in feature productions from the West Coast to Ontario if B.C. does not match or beat Ontario’s Production Services Tax Credit

Studio wars

‘Producers of sci-fi movies need really big studio spaces with high ceilings, and we have them.’
-Avtar Thandi, owner of B.C.’s River Studios, on why his province gets bigger-budget Hollywood projects than Ontario

‘Ben Stiller loves Montreal’
-Montreal studio owner Michel Trudel explains that the Hollywood film A Night at the Museum left Montreal for cheaper special effects, not because the star dislikes the city

‘They promised us transparency when this [studio] initially was proposed a few years ago. What we have received has been a conspiracy of silence.’
-Peter Lukas, president of Showline Studios, on what he sees as a secretive deal between the FilmPort mega-studio and the City of Toronto

‘The number of blockbuster movies is increasing, and the average budget of films is increasing, and the end-users are buying product. All are green lights for the future.’
-Toronto Economic Development Corporation president and CEO Jeffrey Steiner on why the city needs the megastudio

Hype

‘I think it’s wrong to say any publicity is good publicity.’
-Michael Sellers, producer of the Karla Homolka biopic Deadly

Lights, camera…

‘It’s still cameras following us around and interrupting our lives – just bigger cameras, from what they tell us.’
-Trailer Park Boy Robb Wells on the making of the upcoming TPB motion picture

Public funding

‘Canadian culture is the victim of the Martin government’s policy of dithering. The government has all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of Canadian TV drama.’
-Peter Murdoch, national VP of media at the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, on Ottawa’s non-committal response to the 2003 Lincoln Report, which, among its 97 recommendations, called for an overhaul of the 1999 Television Policy

‘The person who is most successful in [Canada’s] system is the person who makes the film the bureaucrat can’t say no to… The only words [anyone at Salter] used to describe the script were ‘lame’ and ‘shit’. But everyone knew it would go through the system. It’s the closest thing Canada has had to 9/11.’
-Producer Paul Donovan on Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion, his former company’s own project

‘So I chucked the film board and headed to Vancouver, where a friend of mine said, ‘I can get you on this Robert Altman movie.”
-Producer Don Carmody on becoming a mainstream filmmaker

Hollywood and Canada

‘This kind of censorship is a sophisticated and hidden form. NC-17 doesn’t ban a movie. But it brands it; it relegates it to a ghetto.’
-Producer Robert Lantos disputes the MPAA’s rating of his film Where the Truth Lies

‘Annette looked like the favorite through November-December, and then all of a sudden Million Dollar Baby got the momentum and [Warner Bros.] got behind it and just pushed it and pushed it.’
-ThinkFilm president and CEO Jeff Sackman on Annette Bening losing the best-actress Oscar – for Being Julia, released by his firm – to Hilary Swank

On being Canadian

‘To try to say that when we’re talking about cancer or HIV – and we’re running around the world shooting – is less Canadian than when we’re talking about igloos, is still a sign of provincialism. [It shows a] lack of confidence that we can stand in the world and have something to say about these things and still be Canadians when we do it.’
-Producer Simcha Jacobovici on the CTF’s eligibility rules for documentaries regarding Canadian content