Cinema Canada (Feb-Mar 1974)

CANADIAN FILITINEWS CFDC Annual Report optimistic but cautious The Canadian Film Development Corporation released its Annual Report for 1972/73 recently. It is characterized by the same ambiguity that envelops the entire Canadian feature film scene. On the one hand, the Corporation officially declares that it has good reason to be optimistic for the continuing development of the industry in 1973/74, on the other it talks about analyzing the generally poor results of the low-budget feature films in which it had invested to date, for instance. The total of the budgets of the 31 feature films in which the CFDC invested during the year was $10,815,574, the Corporation’s investment being $4,035,963 or 37 per cent of these budgets. 13 more projects received advance assistance, and at the close of the year the CFDC was committed to invest over half a million, and conditionally committed for another million and a half dollars. The year covered by the report saw the largest sum being pumped into the motion picture industry from Corporation coffers during the CFDC’s five years of existence. Films in distribution, however, returned only $339,745, and the CFDC report shows a whopping loss of $2,078,974 on previous investments written off during this year. Putting that into the context of over ten and a half million invested in Canadian films over a five year period (110 films in all), makes one realize that the CFDC can only function on a continual statutory appropriation basis, i.e. being handed ten million dollars periodically by the government. To be fair, total monies recovered and listed in this document are over one million dollars. 1972/73 was the year that the Corporation decided to drop its prior distribution agreement requirement for its Special Investment Programme, or the $100,000 (presently one-fifteen) lowbudget feature category. It was also the first year that Canadian chartered banks invested in bigger budget features. The Pyx, Lies My Father Told Me, and Between Friends benefitted from these investments. The total amount of this bank money is still peanuts compared to the $150,000,000 sum floating around the States that was put up by 10 bank chains there to spur feature production, but it’s a good start in Canadian terms. 6 Cinema Canada 14 of the films produced here with CFDC assistance exceeded their original budgets in some cases by quite substantial amounts, and the Corporation in the future will take into account the producer’s ability to stay within budget. The participation of private investors in 71/72 represented approximately 18 per cent of monies invested, and the CFDC warns in its report that the Department of National Revenue’s questioning of tax loopholes will cause some investors to think twice in subsequent years. (Those loopholes have now been permanently shut.) At the end of the fiscal year in question, 81 films produced with the assistance of the Corporation were in distribution, some of the other 29 probably doomed never to see a theatre screen. The short list of films that have fully recovered their CFDC investment gained two additions during the year, Gilles Carle’s Les Males, and Jean Bissonnette’s Tiens-toi biens... They are now making a profit. The Corporation expects that this increase in receipts will continue in 1973/74, especially as the number of feature films in distribution should increase considerably, continues the Annual Report for the year ending March 31, 1973. 19 new CFDC backed films were released during the twelve months prior to that date, 12 in French, 7 in English. The highest English language box-office return in Canada was registered by The Rowdyman ($350,000) compared to Jai Mon Voyage (Enuff is Enuff) which grossed $800,000 in Quebec alone. “Whether the quality of the product, the reticence of theatre owners to accept Canadian films, or the apathy of certain distributors is responsible, the consequences remain: English Canadian feature films have great difficulty in finding their public.” While late 1973 brought somewhat of an improvement on this point, the only real commercial successes the CFDC could point to in 72/73 were those of Quebec films. Les Colombes, La Mort d’un Bicheron, and J’ai Mon Voyage racked up nice grosses in Montreal and the rest of French Canada, just as Paperback Hero, The Pyx, and Kamouraska have done recently in English Canada. The report points to Wedding in White’s critical success and laments the failure of A Fan’s Notes to draw audiences. Internationally, the CFDC report claims that our films fared successfully in festivals and special showings, as well as commercially in certain cases (Gilles Carle’s films in Paris, Peter Carter’s and Bill Fruet’s films in Boston and New York). The latter two were mostly critical triumphs capped by short runs, but Carle’s films have been running in the French capital continuously since Bernadette. To encourage Canadian participation in international as well as national film fests, the Secretary of State Department set up the Festivals Office in the summer of ’72. Before turning over all grant giving chores to the Canada Council, the Corporation disbursed circa fifty thousand to five West Coast filmmakers, the same amount to the Montreal production co-op, five thousand to the Film Awards, and two thousand dollars to Cinema/Québec magazine. At the same time, it expressed the hope that the work of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee (created July, 1972) would be of major assistance in the CFDC’s own task of developing a feature film industry in Canada. The committee, composed of representatives from the CFDC, the CBC, the NFB, the Canada Council, and the Public Archives, as well as five people from the private sector (including George Destounis) set out to review the whole area of federal assistance to the Canadian film industry, including the question of capital cost allowance. Canadian content of television commercials, distribution and exhibition of Canadian feature films, etc. One must suppose that it was at their advice that the 60 per cent tax loophole was wiped out, that the CRTC came out very forcefully on Canadian content in commercials, and that the voluntary quota was established. Whether all this will help or hurt remains to be seen. The CFDC’s annual report uses Gal lup Poll statistics to validate its increasing involvement with the whole area of films made especially for television, Since movies are losing their audiences in theatres, it argues, they’re sure to find them on television. Yet the qualitative difference between a motion picture made for the screen and a film shot for TV never enters into the discussion. Show me the figures of the viewing audience in millions (based on a few hundred queries, one might add) and I’ll forget about the ones who fell