Inside:

Distribution on the edge:

Canadian cinema carves an ‘erotic weirdness’ niche – p. B3

Canadian screenwriting:

‘A low-percentage proposition’ – p. B4

Shorts getting longer shrift:

Garnering more slots and more money – p. B20

Film diaries:

Production chronicles from conception to completion – begin p. B7

Features:

The Hanging Garden – p. B7

Shopping for Fangs – p. B11

Gerrie & Louise – p. B14

Pitch – p. B17

Hayseed – p. B19

Shorts:

Guy Maddin: Waiting for Twilight – p. B22

Permission – p. B24

Linear Dreams – p. B26

Director/writer/producer: Thom Fitzgerald * Producers: Louise Garfield, Arnie Gelbart * Diary by: Andy Hoffman

A true story of a filmmaker’s persistence and perseverance, Nova Scotia-based Thom Fitzgerald’s The Hanging Garden took seven years from Fitzgerald’s conception of the story to opening the Perspective Canada series at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

The diary of this film is filled with both the kindness and insight of industry supporters who helped Fitzgerald complete his first feature, and the homophobia and discomfort of various naysayers and funding agencies who possessed an underlying aversion to the film’s content.

The Hanging Garden is the story of Sweet William, a young gay man who returns home to his rural and conservative Nova Scotia home after a 10-year absence.

September 1990: Fitzgerald and Dreux Ellis win several awards at the Atlantic Film Festival, including most promising filmmakers, for their short The Movie of the Week.

Fitzgerald applies to the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation to help develop another project, I’ll Pour for the First Half Hour, about a young gay man hiding his frequent sexual escapades from his conservative family. The nsfdc doesn’t acknowledge his application.

July 1991: A Canada Council grant application for I’ll Pour is rejected with the jury comment that Fitzgerald is homophobic. After pitching the project unsuccessfully to several East Coast producers, Fitzgerald takes a two-year contract as administrator of non-profit film distribution center Atlantic Independent Media.

July 1993: Fitzgerald quits his job with Atlantic Independent Media and holes up in Duncan’s Cove, n.s., for six months to finish a draft of the script. He lives on his very understanding mother’s credit card.

He splits the I’ll Pour script in half. The sexier themes become the stage play Bed and (maybe) Breakfast that is a hit at the Atlantic Fringe Festival but bombs at the Boston Centre for the Arts. The family scenes from the script evolve into a screenplay called Covered in Dust (which becomes The Hanging Garden).

Fitzgerald secures a small grant from the Nova Scotia Department of Education to keep writing and keep the cabin in Duncan’s Cove stocked with food.

December 1993: Fitzgerald’s car gets plowed away during a snowstorm. With a first draft completed he goes to the nsfdc and Telefilm Canada seeking development money, but they slough him off and insist that he find a qualified producer for the project.

Bill MacGillivray and Terry Greenlaw of Halifax-based Picture Plant (Life Classes, Gullage’s) take pity on him and agree to executive produce.

Summer 1994: The funding application sits at Telefilm for nine months unanswered. Fitzgerald becomes discouraged. It is at this point that the theme of suicide is introduced into the script.

September 1994: Fitzgerald goes to Telefilm and ‘grovels.’ By Christmas, the Atlantic office of Telefilm decides to take a risk and finance ‘phase one’ of development, with Fitzgerald as producer. Then nsfdc ceo Roman Bittman follows suit.

Fitzgerald’s mother contributes another development loan to complete the financing package just in time for Christmas. Telefilm and nsfdc stipulations require that he work with a script adviser. Oscar nominee Michael Weller (Ragtime, Hair) agrees to advise.

February 1995: The Hanging Garden script gets accepted into the Praxis Film Development Workshop in Vancouver. With a subsidy from the Canada/Nova Scotia Co-op Agreement on Cultural Development, Fitzgerald flies out to Vancouver to work with writer John Frizzell (Life With Billy).

Spring 1995: Fitzgerald wants to be considered for Telefilm’s emerging directors program, and at Telefilm’s request he sends The Hanging Garden to every distributor in Canada hoping for the required letters of rejection.

MacGillivray and Greenlaw become immersed in their television series Gullage’s and Fitzgerald is once again without a producer.

June 1995: Mina Shum (Double Happiness), Don McBrearty (Butterbox Babies) and Sharon Riis (Loyalties) are among the pros assembled to give feedback at the Praxis reading of the script. David Cubitt is one of the readers.

Frizzell arranges a social drink between Fitzgerald and producer Louise Garfield of Toronto’s Triptych Media, but Fitzgerald is too shy to pitch the Zero Patience producer. Frizzell says he will send Garfield the script.

September 1995: Fitzgerald attends the tiff Symposium with some support from nfb Atlantic head Marilyn Belec. When he discovers his Symposium pass doesn’t get him into any parties, he charges an industry pass on his mom’s credit card, only to discover that the new pass still won’t get him into the gala schmoozefests.

Fitzgerald attends National Screen Institute’s Jan Miller’s free pitching workshop and during the next two days he meets Bryan Gliserman of Cineplex Odeon Films and Charlotte Mickie of Alliance. Both Gliserman and Mickie show interest in the project.

When Fitzgerald spots Garfield at a panel session and asks her what she thinks of the script, she stares at him blankly. Frizzell hadn’t sent her the script.

Post-TIFF September 1995: Garfield reads a copy of the script and asks her partners Anna Stratton and Robin Cass, who are in production on Lilies, to read it and give their approval.

Late September 1995: Fitzgerald pitches The Hanging Garden to a panel of financiers at the Atlantic Film Festival. Wendy MacKeigan of fund approaches him afterwards to encourage an application.

November 1995: Fitzgerald goes to Scotland and wins the public pitching competition (for another project made up on the spot) at the Sharing Stories conference in Glasgow. His prize is a development commission from Britain’s Channel 4 and France’s arte. He meets Galafilm producer Arnie Gelbart (Lilies) over a lunch arranged by Garfield. While at Heathrow airport, Fitzgerald mails the script to three Channel 4 commissioners.

Dec. 31, 1995: During a New Year’s Eve party in Nova Scotia with visiting u.k. friends including Trainspotting producer Andrew Macdonald, dream casts are discussed. Macdonald offers to give The Hanging Garden script to Kerry Fox (Shallow Grave).

January 1996: Fitzgerald joins Edinburgh International Film Festival director Mark Cousins at Sundance, and meets up with Alliance’s Mickie, who gives script feedback and informs him that he’s not invited to the ‘Canadians at Sundance’ party.

February 1996: Garfield agrees with Fitzgerald that Maritime music should be an essential element of the project. Halifax publicist Marianne Ward entices letters of interest from musicians Ashley MacIsaac, The Rankin Family, Holly Cole and Mary Jane Lamond.

Fitzgerald flies to London to screen his short film Cherries at the National Film Theatre and meets with Fox who agrees to play Rosemary, the cynical bride in The Hanging Garden.

While in the u.k., Fitzgerald drops in on Jacquie Lawrence of Channel 4’s Independent Department who ultimately commissions the film.

March to August 1996: The project is structured as a three-way coproduction, with Triptych’s Garfield (Ontario), Galafilm’s Gelbart (Quebec) and Fitzgerald (Emotion Pictures, n.s.) producing. They seek a $1.8 million budget with financing applications going to Telefilm, nsfdc, Quebec’s sodec and fund.

They get distribution offers from Cineplex for domestic and Alliance for international.

Then things get strange.

sodec requires a different distributor for Quebec and so the Quebec rights are transferred to Malofilm. Alliance is kept out of the financing because fund and Telefilm can’t cooperate on the recoupment.

Quebec dop Daniel Jobin (Lilies) is hired.

August 1996: Casting is thrown into chaos when several Toronto agencies refuse to send actors to audition for the parts of teenage Fletcher and teenage Sweet William. Homophobia is suspected as the parts call for characters who are not heterosexual. Joining Fox are casting choices Chris Leavins (Traders) as the gay protagonist Sweet William, Seana McKenna, Peter MacNeill, Sarah Polley, Joan Orenstein, Joel Keller and Christine Dunsworth.

Back in Halifax and agonizing over the difficulty in finding an actor to play teenage Sweet William, Fitzgerald gets a call from local Troy Veinotte who wants to audition for the part of the 350-pound homosexual teenager. Veinotte gives far and away the most sympathetic and strongest audition and is the final casting addition.

August 1996: Word comes that sodec will not be a part of the financing, however, the structure still includes the Quebec Credit d’Impot and the other funding agencies. Post will still take place in Montreal and the budget is set at $1.5 million.

August to September 1996: During prep, Fitzgerald and Garfield clash over locations. Ultimately, the garden must be created and installed from scratch by greens man Ken Shannik. Art director Charlotte Harper goes on CBC Radio pleading for house plant donations. Only five begonia hopefuls show up.

Toronto-based production designer Taavo Soodor works with Fitzgerald and costume designer James Worthen on an elaborate color palette.

A crisis arises when one of the actors is refused insurance. The producers protest and get production insurance with exclusions. A special rig is created by Cirque du Soleil for the hanging scene.

Sept. 8, 1996: A 25-day shoot commences on the Halifax waterfront. By the end of week four, the production had experienced only one day of sunshine, one hurricane and one tropical storm. pm Gilles Belanger adds a sixth day to the week when the forecast calls for a sunny afternoon. The Quebec crew provides wine with lunch on Fridays.

Garfield attends an Atlantic Film Festival panel and meets music supervisor Ron Proulx, who gets enlisted for the film.

Location manager Mark Austin and production accountant Debbie Finkbeiner elope.

October 1996 to April 1997: Post-production takes place in Montreal with picture editor Susan Shanks (The Bay Boy) at Telepoint. Sound is edited at Premium Sound and mixed at Astral. Sonolab does the lab work. Proulx secures a soundtrack release from Virgin Records featuring artists that Ward had secured. John Roby does a Celtic-influenced score with vocal arrangements by Laurel MacDonald.

September 1997: The Hanging Garden opens Perspective Canada at tiff.