Film Finances Canada will shut down its Montreal office at the end of July, citing fewer bondable independent film and television productions in Quebec as the reason.

According to FFP executive VP Jim Sternberg, the closure of the Montreal office is the result of the changing face of the market, and he hopes the trending away from using completion firms will remain confined to Montreal. Three layoffs came with the news.

Montreal is the market where Film Finances International, the world’s oldest film completion guarantor, opened its first Canadian location in 1979. Quebec production will be serviced by FFC from its Toronto office.

Sternberg says although Toronto and Vancouver seem to be booming with work right now, a lot of it is service, and productions with big studios and budgets behind them rarely, if ever, utilize a guarantor.

‘If a bank or Telefilm agrees to go without a bond, there will be less of us doing this,’ says Sternberg. ‘Once there were three bonding companies in Canada and now there is one. I think that says a lot about how this market has diminished.’

FFC merged with The Completion Guarantors in 2003. Toronto’s Motion Picture Bond Company closed in 2002.

Working with production investors, FFC has underwritten and guaranteed completion of Canadian productions and coproductions such as Sea Hunters, Wilby Wonderful and Seven Times Lucky.

-www.filmfinancescanada.com