Montreal: A wave of resignations, bitter press releases, counter press releases, a lawsuit, and a number of severely bruised egos have, in recent weeks, turned this city’s quest for a new film festival into a three-way war, further muddying the already murky future of the Montreal festival scene even as its newest entry, the Montreal International Film Festival, unveiled its starting lineup of programmers and board of directors.

What has occurred since can perhaps be described, at best, as terrible growing pains.

Events came to a head Feb. 21 when the World Film Festival filed an injuction with the Quebec Superior Court claiming damages against organizer L’Équipe Spectra and its new Montreal festival.

WFF is asking the court for damages of up to $2 million, claiming Spectra and its fledgling MIFF have damaged its international reputation and image, as well as placed in peril WFF’s mission by undermining access to individuals and films.

WFF is also asking the court to issue a stop and desist order prohibiting Spectra’s new festival from all usage of the name ‘Festival International des Films de Montreal,’ the festival’s French name. WFF is represented by the Montreal law firm of Robinson Sheppard Shapiro.

The fur began to fly on Feb. 10 when Spectra, the group behind Montreal’s wildly successful International Jazz Festival, announced that Moritz de Hadeln would head up MIFF. The Swiss-born Hadeln has a four-year contract and a proven track record, having led the Berlin Film Festival for 22 years and overseen the Venice Film Fest for several years.

‘This guy knows everybody and you just don’t have a list of 25 people who can do a job like this,’ says Patrick Roy, an exec with Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm and a member of MIFF’s programming committee.

Predictably, WFF honcho Serge Losique decried the move, dismissing MIFF once more as an illegitimate broach of his event’s mandate. WFF has been running since 1977.

Then came the announcement that the inaugural edition of MIFF is slated for Oct. 12-23, almost simultaneous with the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Montreal’s oldest film festival, whose 34th instalment is planned for Oct. 13-23.

The overlap prompted sharp words from FNC director Claude Chamberlan, charging it will have dire consequences for his event.

‘I really don’t understand how they can do this. They’ve got to move the dates either one month before us or after,’ he says, likening MIFF to Wal-Mart, the mammoth chain often accused of killing off local stores when it moves into a community.

MIFF won the backing of Telefilm Canada and SODEC last year, after both funders pulled out of WFF amid charges of poor management. It will have a budget of $5.4 million for its first edition and is overseen by Spectra president Alain Simard. He insists the festival’s board of directors worked to be respectful of both the World and Nouveau festivals.

‘We thought that having our festival at the same time as the Nouveau Festival would mean we could both gain from the publicity for the events,’ he says, adding that MIFF will move to the summer in 2006. But he acknowledges that the three-way skirmish is unpleasant: ‘The point of this was for Montreal to look like we were organized, not to look stupid.’

One more point of confusion, the festival names. Festival du Nouveau Cinéma has for years been referred to by English reporters and fest-goers, as the New Festival. And yet Spectra seemed to be poaching this name when it noted that its Festival International de Film de Montréal should, to the rest of Canada, be known as the New Montreal FilmFest. Simard has since told Playback that ‘the new film fest’ is meant as a slogan. The proper English name is the Montreal International Film Festival.

In addition to Spectra executives, the MIFF board of directors includes Pierre Brousseau of Films Seville, Guy Gagnon of Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm, Pierre Lampron of Quebecor Media, media mogul Daniel Langlois, Christian Larouche of Christal Films and Pierre Roy, head of French-language broadcasting at Astral Media.

The board of governors includes Alberto Barbera of the Turin Film Museum, former Telefilm executive and Quebec cabinet minister Louise Beaudoin, National Film Board president Jacques Bensimon, Rendez-vous du Cinéma Québécois president Denis Chouinard, producers Denise Robert and Roger Frappier, actor Yves Jacques, documentary producer Monique Simard, industry vet Robert Roy and service executive Michel Trudel of Mel’s Cité du Cinéma/Technoparc.

The war of the festivals created a particular problem for Langlois, who sat on the boards of both the FNC and MIFF. Last week, Langlois ended the perceived conflict by resigning as president of the former. He was joined shortly thereafter by the event’s executive director, Sheila de la Varende. Despite the resignations, Chamberlan insists his Nouveau Festival will go on as planned.

The departure of Langlois can only be seen as a major blow, given his cash infusion to the FNC, upward of $1.5 million over the past six years. As well, the festival has previously unreeled in the Ex-Centris and Cinéma du Parc complexes, both of which are owned by Langlois. Chamberlan hopes to fill the gap with new sponsors.

With files from Playback staff

-www.NouveauCinema.ca

-www.ffm-montreal.org