Sea change in Quebec feature industry

There are a growing number of young and first-time directors at our door. It’s a phenomenon we haven’t seen in a long time. We’re going to have to readjust to this new reality.’

The ‘new reality’ cited by Telefilm Canada’s Quebec director of operations, Louis Laverdiere, has all the qualities of a distinct sea change flooding over the Quebec feature film industry.

The subject touches on a wide range of issues including the appropriate volume, budgets and windows for feature film production, the role of screenwriters in the film d’auteur tradition, and the role of agencies in creative decision-making.

Talks between Telefilm and sodec, the Quebec funding agency, are underway and more policies are sure to spring forth aimed at correcting a situation rooted in economic crisis, funding cutbacks, and the relative lack of success for films produced within the public system, those six to 10 features shot in any one year with budgets of $2 million to $4 million.

Laverdiere calls the policy alert at Telefilm ‘a virage’ (a turning point) ‘because I’m fed up with talking about the crisis in feature films.’

But the new orientation isn’t only about more low-budget films being produced inside the system.

In the context of a feature film industry which in one way or another is financed by the state, the new opening is really a mid-field response to an ongoing and deeply rooted debate in the industry shaped by producer demands for more autonomy, and the widely held belief that there’s a need for greater diversity in feature film content.

Only in Canada?

Cinemaginaire president Denise Robert, producer of Robert Lepage’s feature film debut Le Confessionnal, says Canada may be the only country in the world where the industry is actively ‘inventing a dialogue of filmmaking based on formulas.’

‘Our system is all sorts of rules and regulations and formulas, and we’ve learned a long time ago that that doesn’t necessarily work. It might work for some, but to make an industry you need all kinds of films. You need to be innovative,’ she says.

Pierre Brousseau, vice-president, marketing, communications and development at distributor Alliance Vivafilm, says there’s no ready cure for the malaise facing features.

‘The solution lies with individuals. It’s life, not form,’ he says. ‘Go with the right people, people with some guts and some form of originality. Multiply (the impact of a film like) Eldorado by five and you’ve changed the whole industry.’

Outspoken advocate

Cinemaginaire producer Arlette Dion, an outspoken advocate for the new and so far largely unwelcome generation of Quebec filmmakers, says the feature film community has become ‘gonflž, gonflž, gonflž’ (bloated), and the spiraling costs and established egos attached to features are being questioned, especially in light of dwindling audiences, she says.

‘It is not a feature industry with real private investment, it’s a state-financed cinema, one way or another,’ says Dion. ‘Now that we’re in a period of economic crisis, we have been asked to become profitable. So the question is, how will we become profitable?

‘That’s why the milieu is beginning to make room for this new trend (low-budget films). We can say that in the past two years all the films that were made had so-called big budgets, at least for Canada, and it’s always by the same clique, filmmakers over 50.’

Meanwhile, she says there’s been little room in the system for young filmmakers, who, after an apprenticeship of shorts and low-budget films, are ready to graduate to features in the $1 million to $1.5 million range. Instead, this group, typically aged 30 to 45, ‘have been making long and short-form films nobody sees,’ she says.

‘It wasn’t always this way for new talent. Arcand, Forcier, Beaudin, Lea Pool all made their first movies in their 20s,’ she says.

Pierre Even, vice-president business and legal affairs at Malofilm Communications, sees the trend as a way of leveraging more production from the system, and says Malofilm intends to back a number of first-time feature directors with low-budget projects.

‘It is extremely difficult completing the budget on $2 million and $3 million French-language features with the traditional approach,’ he says. ‘Low-budget films can be financed much faster. It’s a way to reduce the risk and help young talent.’

Even says Malofilm is looking for high-quality scripts, and in the case of a sale to tv, where many more Quebec features are headed, the asking price will be the same as for a feature produced for $2 million.

‘This is a new approach that not only gives young filmmakers a chance,’ he says, ‘it’s also a way for experienced directors to work more often, too. We can do more films with smaller budgets.’

The sea change includes the wave of new cineastes in the film d’auteur tradition, and interestingly enough, films which are new to this market, publicly supported genre movies with commercial potential.

If the growing demand for public funding means an even more painful selection process for Telefilm, there is no hint of a rear-guard reaction at the agency; after all, it too has changed.

While Laverdiere is not apologizing for past decisions, he does want Quebec’s feature filmmakers and screenwriters to become much more daring.

He says filmmakers should be prepared to undertake more research and be ‘more audacious.’

According to Laverdiere, the milieu is so small that a form of self-censorship has taken hold.

‘Filmmakers are there to say the kinds of things we wouldn’t dare,’ he says.

‘I have the impression that there’s a great deal of self-censorship (among filmmakers),’ he says. ‘People are afraid of the reaction of the institutions (and) that we’ll be offended. It’s as if we aren’t human beings who wish to be excited, dazzled, made to laugh and cry, or to bander (become sexually excited).’

He says the decision-makers at Telefilm are no different than the general movie-going public. They want to see movies that turn them on – intellectually, emotionally, spiritually.

Laverdiere says filmmakers may have turned away from more controversial issues because of the kinds of frightful problems encountered on projects like the Galafilm/National Film Board documentary The Valour and the Horror, or the Tele-Action/nfb miniseries The Boys of St. Vincent.

‘This has provoked a certain level of worry,’ he says, ‘but filmmakers should know Telefilm will support controversial projects, as long as they have character.’

According to Laverdiere, the system has to have a balance between low- and higher-budget films, and considering the many obstacles facing theatrical films, various options have to be explored.

Telefilm and sodec are discussing formalizing a joint program in support of low-budget Quebec features, akin to the agency’s Horizon program in Western Canada, he says.

The change enveloping feature film policy in Quebec also reflects the long-standing tug-of-war between the private sector and the public agencies, which are criticized by some producers and distributors for their unwelcome creative input and behaving like bankrolling movie studios.

Let the producers decide

‘I’m in favor of abolishing all rules and regulations and letting the private sector decide how to make a film,’ says Robert.

She says the rules and regulations that might have been helpful in setting up an industry in the 1980s are now outmoded. Producers, distributors and directors are professionally qualified, she says, and it’s time to take a closer look and decide whether existing formulas promote or undermine the success of Canadian film.

Robert says there have to be minimum rules for publicly funded productions, but once the agencies understand what and why producers and directors are proposing, filmmakers should be free of further constraints.

‘They (the agencies) should say, `Do it the way you feel it should be done.’ Maybe we’ll get good results from this approach, but we should try,’ she says.

Dion draws a parallel to the nfb, which she left last fall after 10 years as director of its independent film support program (acic/pafpps).

At the nfb, where her work consisted of offering advice and services on 20 to 30 projects a year on a service budget of less than $650,000, Dion says the feature process is bogged down by bureaucracy and quotas.

In her view, an excess of political correctness and program constraints has worked to undermine creative self-expression.

‘The new wave at the board says we have to justify our existence to taxpayers, so films have to be `useful.’ But I didn’t go to the board to be a social worker, I’m interested in art,’ says Dion.

For Dion, supporting the new wave of Quebec filmmakers has meant ‘working outside the established industry, which is sinking through boredom.’

Eldorado

Vivafilm’s Brousseau points to Charles Biname’s Gen-X drama Eldorado as the kind of ‘innovative, groundbreaking’ project that has helped to raise the industry’s spirits.

Produced by Lorraine Richard of Cite-Amerique, the production method on Eldorado stands in marked contrast to the heavy, institutionalized approach to industrial moviemaking.

Shot on a budget of $1.5 million, the film looks like it cost twice that amount. Biname went with a tiny, two-camera crew, putting the emphasis on extensive preproduction and many weeks of rehearsals with the actors.

With a box office headed towards $400,000, Eldorado has one of the best returns in the drama category since Leolo.

Gut feeling

‘I believe we’ve made a point with Eldorado. That point being maybe we should go back to what made things tick (in cinema’s early days), gut feeling,’ says Brousseau.

He says the film was not pitched to the agencies as a ‘commercial venture.’ Rather, he says Eldorado’s ‘on-the-street’ sensibility and its ‘groundbreaking’ approach made it worthwhile producing. ‘That’s what makes it commercial, it’s the spirit,’ he says.

Not everyone subscribes to the notion that Eldorado represents some new benchmark.

Dion says the film is too slick technically. ‘It looks like all those damn films that cost $3 million, and anyway, it’s supposed to be a film about young people who are always on the edge of suicide, but the guy who did it is one of their parents. Let Generation X speak for themselves,’ she says.

Testing ground for talent

Robert sees the new trend as providing professional support and a testing ground for young filmmakers ‘who have talent and aren’t necessarily ready for the big, normal structure that imposes itself on filmmakers.’

With reduced budgets and greater creative freedom, Robert says the private sector can serve as an incubator for tomorrow’s filmmakers.

She says ‘talent is not a question of age’ and that the opportunities should also extend to cinematographers, art directors, writers, editors and other creative roles.

But she says there’s no magical formula.

‘I don’t know how one can say in an industry, `From now on we are going to make this kind of movie, $2 million and less, or we’re going to make event movies, $5 million or less.’ I mean what’s an event movie? If we had all the answers and magic formulas we’d all have jobs in l.a. running the major studios. So you have to be innovative and you have to try things.’

There are exceptions to the low-budget option for new talent, and perhaps the most striking is Lepage’s new film, Le Confessionnal.

Coproduced by David Puttnam and Philippe Carcassonne, the film cost about $3.5 million and will be distributed by Alliance Vivafilm.

Robert credits Telefilm’s support on the project, and despite the director’s international reputation in legit theater, she says the film is also a risk.

Le Confessionnal will receive the right kind of distribution, including a prestigious launch by Polygram in Europe, but unlike other directors who need years before graduating to features, Lepage has had no short-film experience of any kind, nor is his stage success an absolute guarantee.

The pay off

Brousseau frames Vivafilm’s interest in the new wave of filmmakers as a pay-off for the future.

‘We certainly don’t expect to see profits,’ he says. ‘Instead, Alliance’s overall business success makes it possible to mix corporate generosity and encourage new talent, and build relationships with tomorrow’s best filmmakers.’

Brousseau says the turning tide in the Quebec feature film industry is a wake-up call premised on the need to produce movies he refers to as ‘audacious.’

‘Never go for the middle,’ he says. ‘Go for the intelligent risk and take the long view.’

Film d’auteur

Brousseau is also critical of Telefilm’s film d’auteur policy, which he says has unbalanced the domestic system to the detriment of screenwriter development.

‘Quebec’s film d’auteur policy is based on an outdated French directors’ policy formulated in the 1950s,’ he says. ‘Only 10% of directors can actually write and direct. There’s this view that the director is the real author of the film, that it is entirely and uniquely his vision, but this view is being challenged,’ he says.

Laverdiere at least partly agrees.

He says local production is solidly grounded in the film d’auteur tradition, but more films from screenwriters should be developed.

It’s a delicate subject in Quebec, says Laverdiere, who qualifies his support for film d’auteur movies with the suggestion that developing and investing in screenwriters is no less important than the development of skilled cinematographers, editors or sound recordists.

‘We haven’t made proper use of the talents of our professional screenwriters,’ he says.

Perhaps another sign of the changing times is Telefilm’s $1 million investment in Richard Roy’s new film Caboose.

Budgeted at $2.7 million and produced by Richard Sadler of Films Stock International, producer of last year’s comedy box office hit Louis 19, Brousseau describes Roy’s film as a ‘new genre’ in Quebec – a straight-up, detective story and psychological thriller, the very sort of commercial feature Telefilm and sodec have refused to finance in the past.

According to Brousseau, Roy was ‘simply abandoned’ by the agencies after directing his first feature film, Moody Beach. Not anymore.

There were negotiations with the agencies and compromises to be sure, but Caboose will ‘capitalize on the new juices’ by casting emerging talent Gildor Roy and two leads from Eldorado, Isabelle Richer and James Hyndman, in the leading roles.

The film has a French coproducer who has picked up 20% of the cost, and will benefit from a $250,000 injection via the Canada/France mini-treaty. It goes into production next month.

Other prominent Quebec producers are also backing young talent, including Robin Spry of Telescene Communications and Roger Frappier of Max Films.

Spry fought a heated battle with Telefilm less than two years ago when he sought support for John Hamilton’s low-budget feature debut, a comedy called The Myth of the Male Orgasm. Telescene lost that battle, but all the hallway shouting and confrontations may have served some purpose.

As for Frappier, he is on record as saying the Quebec industry has a responsibility to encourage and develop new writers and directors, and has announced that Max Films will produce and distribute director Manuel Foglia’s first feature film based on the Gen-X novel L’avaleur de sable.

The new wave projects

Among the feature film projects identified with Quebec’s new wave are Olivier Asselin’s Le seige de l’ame, a philosophical story about a university professor’s encounters with the extraterrestrial, budgeted at $1.5 million and slated to be shot in August, and Stephane Laporte’s La Crucifixion de St-Pierre, a story about a young gay man who lives on welfare and likes to party. Both are in development at Cinemaginaire.

Malofilm’s Even says he is working with Amerique Films producer Martin Paul-Hus on at least three features from first-time directors: Isabelle Poissant’s A la memoire de mon ami, Isabelle Hayeur’s Les Siamoises, a love story about teenage vampires, and Denis Villeneuve’s Le Film maudit, a film about a pyromaniac. The latter two are budgeted at about $600,000.

There are also a number of lower budget features with Telefilm investments of between $42,000 and $300,000 that were produced in the current year, including Jean-Marc Vallee’s La Liste noire, Andre Turpin’s Zigrail, Gilles Noel’s Error sur la personne, Francois Delisle’s Ruth, Jean Beaudry’s Nuit pale and three Bachar Chbib films – Draghoula, Ride Me and La Mule et les emeraudes.

Working with less may simply be a matter of ‘no choice,’ as Dion puts it, but the new generation of filmmakers sees scaling down as a way of maintaining creative control over their projects.

Dion says the current state of cinema is so expensive, weighted down and obsessed with technique, ‘that it’s extremely difficult for young filmmakers to have any control of their productions.’

Commenting on the new Andre Turpin film Zigrail, produced by Productions Jeux D’Ombres on a budget of $400,000, Brousseau says the low-budget approach ‘eliminates undue pressure’ on the young filmmaker.

By adopting the appropriate scale, ‘it allows you to protect talent and invest in the future,’ he says.

‘Why should he (Turpin) be compared with someone who shoots a film for $3 million? The idea is to find the right crowd for these kinds of films, and not get caught up with established directors and big p&a budgets.’

Vivafilm wants Zigrail’s release campaign ‘to match the end product’ and plans to showcase the film with a premiere at Claude Chamberlan’s International Festival of New Cinema and Video.

Andrew Noble, one of the producers of Zigrail, says shooting with less than $250,00 in cash made sense.

‘It’s a budget that fits the production,’ he says. ‘We decided we don’t want to work for other producers. We want to make our own films, against the odds.

‘If (Turpin) had made the film for $2.8 million it would have been an incredible strain for a first-time director. He chose to go with a smaller producer; otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to make the film he wanted to make.’

Zigrail was financed by the Canada Council ($50,000), sogic’s Jeunes Createur program ($54,000) and Telefilm ($100,000), with other small public grants and an advance from Vivafilm of $60,000.

Nobody will let you play

Victor Sandrasagra, a producer with Amerique Films and line producer on A la memoire de mon ami, says, ‘One of the reasons we gave up on films in the $1.5 million and up range is because there’s too much pressure and nobody will let you play. Once you stick a young director with a $2 million budget, they freak out.’

The film is currently in front of the cameras in Bulgaria on a budget of $510,000 and stars Pierre Chagnon, Denis Bouchard and Chantale Monfils, who have agreed to defer 40% of their fees.

To stay on budget – the cash portion is about $400,000 – the shoot uses a small cast and crew, 14 people, a minimum of location setups, and substitutes ‘real’ people in documentary-style footage for paid extras, says Sandrasagra.

Financing comes from Telefilm ($100,000), sodec ($170,000), Malofilm Distribution ($75,000) and the Quebec tax credit ($100,000).

Robert says a production’s budget has to fit the script.

On first reading of the Asselin screenplay Le seige de l’ame, she says it was scripted as a $3 million project. ‘But (Asselin) was not ready to work with a $3 million picture because as soon as you start talking about $3 million you’re talking about a lot of concessions that have to be made.’

Robert says she asked the director what he felt could be sacrificed in his screenplay to create a worthwhile project at half the budget.

For Asselin, the cost-reducing process includes shooting in Super 16 instead of 35mm, cutting down on crowd scenes, locations and setups, cast and expensive post-opticals that the director subsequently discovered can be produced in alternate ways.