In some ways, the debate around cultural relevance versus commercial success of Canadian theatrical films mirrors the current heated talk over whether Telefilm Canada should continue to support the minimum guarantee.

The association representing Canadian film distributors and exporters, cafde, says Heritage Canada is instructing Telefilm to stop giving distribs support – which can be as much as 75% – toward a minimum guarantee payment to producers. The mg support is currently given via Telefilm’s Feature Film Distribution Fund.

Small distributors say without mg support, they won’t be able to buy rights because they can’t pay 100% of the cost themselves. The smaller companies, some of which have organized a formal lobby group in Quebec, say that instead, they might have to go cap in hand to larger distribs such as aac, Lions Gate and TVA International.

cafde president Richard Paradis makes a case for retention of Telefilm support for minimum guarantees, with 50% coming from the funder and 50% from the distrib. But his argument simultaneously underscores both the small distributors’ need for support in this area, and the prevailing argument against non-commercial films.

‘But we’ve been told by [Heritage] even if it’s not yet written in stone, the [public contribution] for the minimum guarantee will be zero, [with] a total amount of about $11 million for marketing. But if there isn’t [a partly publicly funded] minimum guarantee, and the distributor has to take 100% out of his pocket, the distributor will have a tendency to go only with projects that he or she is sure have potential in the marketplace.’

Meantime, does the government want to encourage the more culturally oriented, smaller films, or not? The new Canadian Feature Film Fund specifically says first films and auteur projects should get money. But if no one knows whether they will succeed, where will the minimum guarantee come from?

What would these foreign breakout films have become without grassroots support of the type provided by mgs and small distribs? The Full Monty would have to have been renamed to reflect a distinct, er, lack of exposure.

On the other hand, maybe there’s a certain amount of irrefutable set-in-ink, bottom-line logic to this threat of no public money for mgs. If you tilt your head t’other way in assessing what Paradis has said, if you respect the need for widely accessible product, well-packaged, you’ll wonder why distribs would ever support films of unsure market potential.

What are the public treasury and public trust if not reflective, most of the time, of what a big chunk of the audience wants?

Either way, the federal policy in this area must be consistent: if there will be production support for small films, there needs to be support for small distributors, too. Whether there’s another route than continuing funding for the mg remains to be seen. Let the debate continue.