‘Mandate creep’ is an insidious bureaucratic disease whereby an institution draws more and more elements into its orbit, until it can’t keep track of them anymore. When the Ontario Film Development Corporation morphed into the Ontario Media Development Corporation in 2000, the worry was the enfeebled institution, robbed of investment dollars, would expand to do more – film and television, interactive digital media, book and magazine publishing, and music industries all fall within its mandate – less well.

On March 6, 35 floors above Toronto’s Eaton Centre, in the offices of the Ontario Investment and Trade Centre, a room full of producers and publishers were engaged in speed-dating. If this is mandate creep, bring it on.

From Page to Screen, the brainchild of OMDC program consultant Janet Hawkins, brings together Ontario film and television producers with their counterparts in print, book producers. There are many things that make them comparable, but the primary one is that to thrive they need good stories.

Like all good ideas, in hindsight, From Page to Screen is a no-brainer. ‘Cross-sector promotion is one of our stated business goals,’ says Kristine Murphy, OMDC’s director of industry development. ‘It just seemed like a natural idea to put book publishers together with film and TV producers – so many great films and TV series have been made from books.’ Adds Murphy: ‘We have all this talent in the province – a thriving publishing sector, a mature production industry – but the two industries didn’t know each other.’

The film producers were out in force, including Robin Cass of Triptych Media, Julia Rosenberg of January Films, Ron Mann of Sphinx Productions, and Judy Holm and Michael McNamara of Markham Street Films, a nonfiction and documentary house that took its first step into drama with Victoria Day, which premiered in World Competition at Sundance in January.

‘It’s a useful shortcut to negotiation,’ says Holm, who claims to be on a ‘fiction roll’ with Victoria Day under her belt. ‘Rather than blindly going through a catalogue to figure out what you might be interested in, the OMDC hooks you up with like-minded publishers. Then the publishers pitch what might be best suited to you. It’s a time-saver.’

Rosenberg has worked on a number of films adapted from novels, including Fugitive Pieces, The Statement and Being Julia, when she was head of production at Serendipity Points Films. Now, as president of her own production company, January Films, she has three literary properties in her development slate.

‘Our industry does not circulate a lot of galleys… at least I don’t get them. So there’s not a fever to run after material,’ she says. ‘It could boost both industries through cross-pollination.’

It does indeed cut both ways. Says Mann of his 20-minute meeting with McClelland & Stewart: ‘There’s a TV series we are developing with Canwest, and [M&S executive] Marilyn Biderman liked it and she wants to option the book rights.’

Mann concurs with Rosenberg: ‘My phone doesn’t ring with agents offering me books to option. It’s very different from the U.S…. there is no mechanism [here]. So it’s a good opportunity to meet publishers and see their catalogues.’

Mann says he participated in the OMDC’s Music Makes It!, a 2008 initiative that matched producers and record companies. Then Mann slyly confesses, ‘I go for the swag. I’ve got tons of CDs and books which I can now resell.’

Publishers and producers alike are thrilled that the OMDC is soon to announce a rights-acquisition fund that will help Ontario producers seeking to option the works of Ontario-based writers published by Ontario-based publishers – this is, after all, a provincial initiative.

As for the publishing side, a straw poll indicates overall satisfaction.

David Caron, co-publisher of Toronto-based ECW Press, who attended the inaugural event in 2008, says he has been approached by a number of producers from last year’s session.

‘If we get one offer from this year, it’s gravy,’ he says. ‘We get a sense of who is out there, and building relationships. It may not be this book, but they will be interested in a book at some point.’

Sarah MacLachlan, president of the venerable House of Anansi Press, has had some experience shepherding print to screen. In 1998, Anansi published The Tracey Fragments, which Bruce McDonald adapted in 2006. Which is another commonality of the two industries: they’re sloooow.

MacLachlan says she was thrilled with the result. ‘It was made with love and passion. That’s what you get when you go with an independent filmmaker. And that’s what a publisher cares about: Is somebody going to do right by your book?’

Sounds like a date.