With Canadian films accounting for a minuscule portion of the national box office market (anywhere from 3% to 6%, depending on who you talk to), it is no surprise that for any thriving Canadian distributor, getting ahold of some hot, foreign (mostly u.s.) titles is the only way to stay in the game. Market penetration and bottom line dollars are the two goals, and local lore has it that if you get anywhere in the range of 10% penetration of the English-language marketplace, you’re doing alright.

Alliance Releasing, the country’s biggest theatrical distributor, hit 12.5% on average in fiscal 1995, says vp Tony Cianciotta, and those numbers are key to last year’s renewals of the company’s output deals with New Line, Fine Line and Miramax. In calendar 1995, Alliance’s top performer was Seven via New Line, which pulled in $11.7 million of the company’s overall tally of $43 million in box office receipts.

In 1994, Alliance and cfp went head-to-head in a bidding war for the Miramax contract. Alliance won and cfp went on to open its own u.s. distribution arm.

At the time – March of ’94 – cfp president Jeff Sackman was vocal about the bidding battle, saying it got too rich for his blood. Sackman was not available at press time, but cfp’s senior vp of Canadian distribution, Shane Kinnear, echoes his boss’ sentiment.

‘There is no question about it, Canadian companies have been traditionally tripping over one another, paying more than the marketplace is worth. It’s not been profitable for any of us and we have been victim to sellers who know we are desperate for product,’ he says.

Cianciotta agrees, but only in part. ‘It’s true that the prices have been going up, particularly if you’ve got output deals with companies like Fine Line, New Line and Miramax, and it’s because it’s a vicious circle. The prices have not only gone up for us, but for them. If they go out to bid on a film, because of the recent box office phenomenon in the United States for upscale films, the prices are high. Whereby five years ago, a film like Howards End would have grossed $2 million in the u.s., today it can gross much, much more.’

By comparison, says Cianciotta, look at Sense and Sensibility. It’s gone beyond us$40 million in box office in the States to date and is still in release.

Even if you’ve got a solid title to release in Canada, a hindrance to generating a profit is the limited number of screens across the country (especially those dedicated to specialty films), says Cianciotta.

‘It is the plague of Canadian distributors that we don’t have enough of these screens in major keys in Canada. We have not developed the customers and the marketing tools, and we haven’t had the opportunity to show these films in a way that would realize every dollar,’ he says.

When Kinnear joined cfp it was part of an overall company strategy ‘to be more aggressive in the acquisition of high-quality Canadian, foreign and American films,’ he says.

cfp’s distribution arm, established in 1995 in New York, is a bargaining tool when competing for titles. ‘It’s the one thing we have that no other Canadian distribution company has,’ says Kinnear. ‘The luxury of being able to determine the North American release strategy, the kinds of images and tools we will take to the North American market, and the opportunity to buy North American rather than just Canadian rights.’

Although cfp has a solid relationship with First Look Pictures (Antonia’s Line, Infinity, Johns), it’s key to be ‘tied to production sources, whether individuals or companies,’ notes Kinnear.

cfp’s budding relationship with Paragon Entertainment to release HandMade Films product, such as Intimate Relations and the upcoming The Wrong Guy, is an example of that strategy.

‘By providing an outlet in the u.s. for a lot of independent filmmakers, it makes us a more logical home for Canada as well,’ adds Kinnear.

Scheduled releases for cfp in 1996 are about 50% to 70% titles that were acquired from independent sources, including Heavy, Butterfly Kiss and Stonewall.

After seven years in the public sector at Telefilm Canada and the Ontario Film Development Corporation, Kinnear sees a different private-sector landscape from the one he used to know.

‘Companies cannot survive on specialty and Canadian product alone – those companies don’t exist anymore. The home-video marketplace has reorganized itself and video continues to be an extremely important part of the revenue stream,’ says Kinnear.

‘The market for videos is much closer to theatrical, and that means the products have to be that much better. In the last 10 years, audiences have become their own programmers. It just means the films out there have to be that much better.’