Montreal: Telefilm Canada’s feature film policies are under renewed criticism from industry sources, but the federal funding agency says it will hold its present course of promoting what it calls ‘diversity and critical mass.’

In an interview from natpe in Las Vegas (Jan. 24), Telefilm executive director Francois Macerola said tough choices have to be made between increasing the number of films produced annually in Canada or backing higher budget projects from established directors and producers.

For the moment, the agency is opting for the former.

Macerola’s comments are partly a response to a recent article by producer Roger Frappier, published Jan. 10 in La Presse. The producer of Love and Human Remains and The Decline of the American Empire says the industry has to compete in the international market, but ‘miniaturization’ of feature budgets is pushing the Quebec film industry ‘to the point of no return.’

(According to Telefilm’s 1994/95 annual report, budget averages for English-language films held steady at $1.6 million, but budgets for French-language features shrank from $2.5 million a year earlier to $1.5 million.)

Frappier says Telefilm’s practice of cutting film budgets has led to less creative freedom, to the point where it is now impossible to produce a costume drama like Kamouraska or a 30-day location shoot like The Decline.

Quebec’s top directors, including Denys Arcand, Francois Girard, Jean-Claude Lauzon, Andre Forcier and Jean Beaudin, only do a film once every four years, and in many cases are planning to shoot their next films in English, adds Frappier.

Macerola says the development ‘is disturbing, but it’s no different in Toronto’ where recognized directors are increasingly invited to work in Hollywood.

He says Telefilm did not invest in Alliance Communications’ Johnny Mnemonic, other than the area of marketing, and cannot freely use significant public funds for big-budget features, including films with foreign stars or expensive special effects.

‘It is up to the producer to bring in the financing on these kinds of international projects,’ he says. ‘If we put $3 million or $4 million in each film, we’ll only do four or five a year.’

Frappier wants the agency to give seasoned producers a fixed development envelope, as it d’es with distributors. In development terms, he says, producers are being replaced by institutions and their creative barriers, ‘and endless reading committees have led to middle-of-the-road films.’

Macerola counters by saying producers have this option through the $9 million Production Revenue Sharing Program.

In an article published in La Presse, Jan. 18, Macerola says protectionist measures such as quotas or an all-Canadian exhibition network are ‘unenforceable or out of date.’

‘More than television, film is directly governed by the laws of the market,’ he says.

‘Canadian features have gradually become the poor cousin of the Canadian audiovisual sector, despite an annual $50 million (global) contribution by Telefilm.’

Macerola says funds for features are ‘shrinking’ as a result of reduced participation by the nfb, ‘and above all, the broadcasters.’

In Canada, he says, up-front investment by broadcasters in feature films is almost non-existent.

Telefilm’s executive director says new funding options have to be explored, among them:

– generating funds for feature films based on the gross revenues of new dth operators and pay-per-view services carried by dth;

– facilitating producer access to new production and post-production technologies through subsidies or cost-sharing programs;

– establishing revenue-generating partnerships with foreign companies that use the Canadian cultural infrastructure (tv, theaters, video clubs, etc.), such as the cnc production tax in France;

– re-examining possible legislative or some regulatory distribution measures for the development of a more protected Canadian domestic market;

– seeing that Canadian productions benefit from European programs, especially under the media ii plan (the efdo program, for example) while working to ensure coproduction efforts are based on products and markets more than government cultural policy or language objectives.

In the current fiscal year, from April 1, 1995 to Jan. 23, Telefilm says it has committed $16.8 million to the production of 20 new Canadian feature films.