– Director/scriptwriter: Andre Turpin

– Producers: Andrew Noble, Anne Marie Gelinas, Salvatore V. Barrera

– Cowriters: Sophie Leblond, Sylvain Bellemare

– Diary by: Joanne Latimer

January 1993: Montreal dop Andre Turpin approaches Les Productions Jeux d’Ombres about directing his first feature film. Turpin, well known for his cinematography in music videos and feature films in Quebec, has already turned down an offer of a $1 million budget film from a larger production company because he wants the creative freedom of a small crew.

‘The idea started out as a nugget, no script,’ recalls producer Andrew Noble. ‘Andre came to us with the story idea, which is basically a road movie that starts in Montreal and goes as far as Istanbul. But, most importantly, Andre had a specific way of filmmaking in mind. He didn’t want to be encumbered by a big crew, rental trucks, caterers and all of the equipment. This corresponded exactly with the kind of filmmaking we’re interested in.’

Spring 1993: Jeux d’Ombres spends the season gathering funding for preproduction. A development grant of $5,000 arrives from sogic’s Jeunes Createurs program, while the Quebec Ministry of Culture contributes $6,000. The Programme Jeunes Volontaires contributes $9,260 for salaries from the Societe development main-d’oeuvre du Quebec.

July 1993: Turpin and the cowriters set off for Europe to ‘do the trip’ and write the script. They start in Paris, rent a car to go to the south of France and head over to Istanbul.

August 1993: The crew returns to Montreal from their trip, script in progress, and immediately puts together a short demo for Telefilm called La Chute. It is comprised of a couple of scenes from Zigrail and is intended to help raise production money.

September 1993: The first draft of the script is ready and submitted to the Canada Council. ‘We went to the Canada Council first,’ explains Noble, ‘because their primary concern is the artistic integrity of the project. We figured Zigrail was more a work of art than a commercial film. We asked for $189,000 and got $48,500. So our structure was slightly different at that budget.’

Noble approaches sogic again, this time asking for $74,000 in production money. ‘Seventy-four thousand dollars may not sound like a lot of money for a feature film, but sogic’s mandate is to assist as many young filmmakers as possible. For $74,000, you can fund a lot of shorts. They turned us down seven months later.’

March 1994: The crew decides to go ahead with Zigrail no matter what. They are prepared to shoot on video, around the $48,500 budget. Adding the deferred salaries and ‘freebies,’ the paper budget is scaled down to $115,000.

A service grant from the National Film Board’s aciq (L’aid au cinema independant au Quebec) program for facilities takes care of the lab costs, editing and printing expenditures.

‘On a whim, I approached Telefilm for production funding,’ recalls Noble. ‘At first they were a little hesitant. Then, they became very helpful. They read the script and came back to us with a thorough critique. They clearly understood what we wanted and how we wanted to film it.

‘We showed them La Chute and more of Andre’s work. Telefilm helped us restructure the film, making the costs more realistic. They said that all we needed was a distributor. So Alliance (Releasing) came on board, with a minimum guarantee of $60,000, and then Telefilm came up with $100,000.’

A tax credit of $67,530 from the Credit D’Impot ends the money difficulties after Jeux d’Ombres invests $25,208 in the film.

June 1994: The nfb pulls out on the aciq service grant. ‘We had a letter of guarantee, but in the end they denied us access,’ recalls Noble. ‘We still don’t really know why. They backed the content and the style. It isn’t even a cash investment for them. We had to go around to our other investors, tell them about the aciq problem and make up the rest of the money.

August 1994: After shooting for two weeks in Montreal, a cast and crew of six people go to film in Europe. They are gone for six weeks.

Upon returning to Montreal to begin editing and sound editing, they discover the left side of some of the film has been scratched during processing at the lab. They shot in Super 16, which requires different developing equipment than regular 16mm. They reshoot what they can.

‘We originally intended to show the film at the Rendez-Vous (du Cinema) festival in March. We were asked to be the opening film,’ says Noble. ‘But we had technical difficulties with the dated sound editing equipment (and) that delayed us.’

March 1995: Telefilm is approached for an extra grant to cover post-production. ‘It was basically for sound changes,’ says Noble. ‘Sound is a very dynamic part of the film. It wasn’t quite right, and we wanted to go back and remix it. So Telefilm came up with another $25,000 for the sound changes. Louis Laverdiere at Telefilm was a big help. And Telefilm subtitled it in English for the Toronto (International) Film Festival.’

June 1995: Zigrail premiers at the Nouveau festival international du cinema, de la video et des nouvelles technologies de Montreal, and enjoys a theatrical stint of five weeks on screens in Montreal.

September 1995: Zigrail screens as part of the Perspective Canada lineup at the Toronto International Film Festival.