Montreal: Comedies are the driving force behind the recent successes of Quebec movies at the box office. In the past two years French-language Quebec features have won an admirable 10% share of theatrical receipts mostly on the strength of films such as Les Boys II, Elvis Gratton II, Laura Cadieux, and most recently La Vie Apres l’Amour.

In the future, homegrown hopes will go out to three new comedies slated for production this season – Louis Saia’s Les Boys III, Gabriel Pelletier’s Karmina 2 and Emile Gaudreault’s feature debut Nuit de Noces. Other new starts with high expectations include Lea Pool’s saucy schoolgirl tale Lost & Delirious, Francis Leclerc’s movie debut Une Jeune fille a la fenetre, Denis Chouinard’s coproduction immigrant drama Ange de Goudron and the new Jean Beaudin thriller Le Collectionneur.

Telefilm Canada’s Quebec operations unit has made financing offers to 13 Quebec feature film productions this year, 10 in French and three in English. Last year the Quebec office funded 22 features, including 18 French-language movies.

Resources for French-track feature production are essentially the same this year as last – approximately $8 million including $2.5 million from the Equity Investment Program, and just under $5.5 million from the Feature Film Fund. The English-track envelope, subject to change, is currently $2.5 million, and includes both production and development.

All of the feature funding available to the Montreal office has been committed, says Telefilm’s Joelle Levie, director, operations, Quebec. The total (national) allocation for the Feature Film Distribution Fund in 2000-’01 is $12 million.

Levie says production demands have increased steadily over the past three years.

This year there were 62 applications for French-language production funding, including 17 projects in appeal, representing a 16% acceptance rate (10 of 62); and 15 applications for English-language production projects, representing a 20% acceptance rate.

‘Last year we put in place an evaluation grid because we had so many projects and we really wanted to evaluate all the projects in the same way. It’s a tool to ensure we’ve gone through all the elements for each project,’ says Levie, who joined Telefilm in the fall of 1997.

(Evaluation criteria includes ‘creative elements’ consisting of the key creative team, script and cast and weighed at 50%; ‘market elements,’ including marquee-value and box-office potential, weighed at 20%; ‘financial elements,’ which also includes recoupment by the agency weighed at 20%, and ‘corporate development’ criteria, which includes ‘the producer’s vision’ and coproduction advantages, weighed at 10%).

The Canadian Television Fund’s Licence Fee Program score card for theatrical features is attached to the eip/fff evaluation grid, and the full project analysis is done in a single exercise.

‘I think the notion of portfolio is very important,’ says Levie. ‘Each year we try to finance different genres of films, first features, auteur-driven films and more commercial films.’

Levie admits some members of the local industry are unhappy with the 2000-’01 feature film offers, which have been criticized for being too commercial, with too many comedies greenlit.

Last year, the grumbling keyed in on the high number of first-time directors – 13 of 22. This year, five directors are making their directorial debut.

Higher budget projects

French-language projects with financing offers from Telefilm for 2000-2001 and budgets over $3 million include Denis Chouinard’s Ange de Goudron (a Studio Max Films coprod with France signed by distributor Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm and licensed by Radio-Canada and pay-tv service Super Ecran); Louis Saia’s comedy Les Boys III (Melenny Productions/Films Lions Gate/src); Sylvain Chomet’s animation feature Champion (a minority coprod with France/Belgium from Productions Megafun/Remstar Distribution/tmn and Super Ecran. Chomet directed award-winning animation short The Old Lady and the Pigeon.); and the Jean Beaudin thriller Collectionneur (Films Cinepix/Lions Gate/src and Super Ecran).

Three additional projects with budgets over $3 million have also received funding offers: Gabriel Pelletier’s Karmina 2: L’Enfer de Chabot, the vamp-comedy sequel (from Go Films, previously Lux Films, and picked up by distrib Vivafilm and licensed by Reseau tva and TMN-The Movie Network); and two inter-provincial coproductions – Lea Pool’s Lost & Delirious (Cite-Amerique/Dummett Films/Seville Pictures/src, chum, wic, tmn and Astral Tele-Reseaux) and Anne Wheeler’s frontier saga Wilderness Station (CineGroupe and Gregorian Films/Lions Gate Films/cbc, Super Channel, Showcase Television and tmn). Pool’s $4.5 million film recently wrapped principal photography in Lennoxville, Que., while Wheeler’s film is set for a location shoot later this year in Quebec.

Upcoming Quebec movies budgeted under $3 million include Catherine Martin’s feature debut Comme pour une marriage (produced by Cooperative de Production Videoscopique de Montreal/Film Tonic/src and Super Ecran); Francis Leclerc’s historical drama and movie debut Une Jeune fille a la fenetre (Palomar/ Vivafilm/Tele-Quebec and Super Ecran); Andre Melancon’s Ciel sur la tete, with directing assistance from Genevieve Lefebvre (Productions Thalie/Lions Gate/Tele-Quebec and Super Ecran), and Emile Gaudreault’s marriage comedy Nuit de Noces, a commercial comedy slated to shoot next month on location in Montreal and Niagara Falls (Cinemaginaire/Films Seville/src).

New Quebec features budgeted at $1 million or less include novelist’s Julie Hivon’s debut Chocolats, creme glacee et autres consolations (GPA Films/Aska Films) and Ziad Touma’s poetic styling Saved by the Belles (produced by Couzin Films).

Broadcasters play role

Radio-Canada and Astral Media pay-tv service Super Ecran topped all broadcasters, each licensing six 2000-’01 Quebec features. Tele-Quebec licensed two and Reseau tva has licensed one, among accepted projects. tmn advanced funding for two French-track movies this year, Champion and Karmina 2. The ctf minimum licence fee requirement for French-language features is $75,000, $150,000 for English movies.

Telefilm’s eip and fff recoupable investments in any feature are capped at $1.5 million, or 49% of the budget. This year’s average Telefilm investment per movie (on the French side) is approximately $770,000. The lfp contribution is capped at a maximum of 20% of the budget, up to $750,000.

‘We have some projects which are good for Telefilm Canada because we recoup some money, the comedies for example, but in terms of the average, nothing has really changed,’ says Levie

Telefilm’s Quebec operations office has increased its French-language development envelope by $200,000 to $800,000. The money comes out of the production funding allocation, at the request of producers.

‘The applications are in already but we’ve only started to consider the projects because we’ve been so busy with the production evaluations,’ says Levie.

The ‘automatic’ portion of the development funds is capped at $325,000 and $75,000 per production company. This year’s English-language feature development envelope is $250,000. In ’99, 78 French-track development applications were processed and 36 were accepted. Nineteen English applications were filed last year and seven were accepted. Overall, demand has increased in each of the last three years, adds Levie.

One feature project, Bernar Hebert’s The Favorite Game (Cine Qua Non Films), financed in ’99-2000, will go into production later this summer.

The top box-office draw among ’99 Quebec productions is Laura Cadieux 2 (Cinemaginaire/Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm) which pulled in $1.3 million. That total will be surpassed shortly by La Vie Apres l’Amour, which was released July 7 on 77 screens and had pulled in over $1 million after the first 10 days. *