Montreal: The Montreal Film & TV Bureau reports total independent production spending reached $694.2 million in 1998 including $197.4 million in foreign shoots, essentially u.s., up from $130 million a year earlier. The Quebec production tally for ’97 was $565 million.

Montreal film commissioner Andre Lafond predicts new growth in ’99, certainly over $700 million.

There were 355 projects shot in Montreal last year including 55 motion picture productions, with a breakdown of four foreign, two coventures, five coproductions and 44 Canadian features.

In tv, there was a total of 61 projects in addition to nine tv movies and 55 tv series. The tv movies included one coproduction, two coventures, two foreign and four Canadian. In tv series, there were three foreign shoots – two were coventures, one was a coproduction – and 49 Canadian series. The number of non-dramatic shorts of under an hour and documentary projects combined totaled 35.

In 1998, Toronto recorded $684.5 million in production, while the Ontario Film Development Corporation reported the provincial total was $743 million.

Vancouver topped all Canadian locales in ’98 with $808 million in indie film and tv production.

‘Depending on how you place the figures on a map, we did surpass Toronto [last year],’ Lafond says. ‘But in my mind we didn’t really because [province-wide] there’s the additional $50 million in Ontario that is somehow related to Toronto. So I still have some work to do.’

Lafond says the needs of local producers – who accounted for 78% of the ’98 total – is his top priority in the year ahead. ‘That is the way Montreal has been forever. I mean we started shooting movies here 50 years ago.’

Lafond says there are 69 confirmed film and tv projects to date in ’99 compared to 42 projects at the same time last year.

According to the commissioner, ‘three big mega-projects’ are on tap in 1999.

Jacqueline Dinsmore, sodec’s new provincial film commissioner (Quebec Film Bureau), will be coordinating and promoting for the province, working with both Lafond and the Quebec City Film Bureau. Her short-term program includes attending Location ’99 (Feb. 19-21), a series of ‘familiarization trips’ (producers visiting Montreal), attending the Cannes Film Festival, and regular trips to New York and l.a.

‘Andre [Lafond] and I have a long-standing relationship. We’re on the phone almost daily,’ she says.

Aware of some of the friction that existed in the past, the bilingual Dinsmore says governments may not always agree, but she and Lafond ‘have the same goals.’

Dinsmore has extensive experience as a production coordinator and ad and as an international sales and market executive.