Calgary-based DB Entertainment’s titular president Doug Berquist, a filmmaker since 1973, is almost understated about the genesis of his two-year-old company.

‘We’d been watching the trades and we saw some of the different deals being made in the world market. Canada is a very international place with 47 [international coproduction] treaties.’

And there are plenty of filmmakers seeking that last few percent of funding. This is where DB comes in. As a Canadian company (headquartered in Alberta), it has access to a range of federal and provincial government sweetners should productions end up shooting here, but it looks beyond just bringing its partners home.

‘We look at ourselves as an international coventuring company. We don’t look at ourselves as a Canadian company. We look at the globe as being our partner,’ says Berquist.

‘We go out and shop around at the markets and say we can bring certain elements to the table. We’re looking for producers who are missing a piece of their financing pie.

This approach brought feature film The Claim, a US$16.8 million Canada/U.K. coproduction from Revolution Films of the U.K., Grovesnor Park of Toronto and DB, to theatres across the country, and The War Bride from Revolution to the small screen.

‘The Claim and The War Bride are exactly the kind of project we’re looking for. In some cases we’re adopting the landscape to fit. Calgary has 11 distinctive location looks so it’s easy for us to accommodate scripts. There’s no provincial sales tax – and look at the exchange rate.’

‘I’ve been making films since 1973 and it was always a struggle to get the financial structure in place; more so today because you have to find other partners to bring pieces to the table. With the treaties we have we’re able to find partners who have their own projects partially financed and packaged, and we find the rest.’

Canadian tax credits play a part as do other factors, like DB’s ability to acquire U.S. domestic sales eased through sheer propinquity.

The company is currently negotiating a slate of potential coproductions bought back from AFM by VP development Jordan Randell. It was the first market attended by the company and Randell ‘came back with 20 projects in various stages of development that just needed the last partner to step in with the final amount of money,’ says Berquist.

The projects are in various stages of readiness, he says. ‘Three are very close to a green light, the rest are in various stages of development. They needed our participation, and once we were on board they could accelerate to the next step. Some may need an actor that we can bring to the table or distribution, plus the tax credit, or we can package the Canadian and U.S. sales and suddenly we’ve got all the pieces you need and the movie’s ready to go.’

Preparing for a late summer/fall shoot in Alberta is a $10-million three-pack composed of two thrillers and a horror movie being shot together to minimize costs. Plus Films of New York is DB’s partner on this project.

DB has two productions of its own planned. The first is Circle of Fate, a Hungarian/Canadian coproduction with FilmCorp of Budapest. The period action piece, set in the 1800s, is about a mountain man whose family is wiped out by wolves and who is subsequently called upon to help save an ophan girl. The film, budgeted at US$5 million, is set in the Canadian Rockies and is tentatively scheduled to shoot in Alberta early next year.

Eve’s Story is based on a true story from Alberta about a woman recovering from epilepsy with the help of a therapist who turns out to be sexually abusing her.

‘We’ve written a fiction based on the facts,’ Berquist says of the script, which originates from DB. The film is budgeted at US$4.2 million and will be shot in Alberta next year. *