Cinema Canada (May 1980)

Fischer is the focus for this crowd on location with The Lucky Star me to name my price and I replied that I didn’t have a price. They said, everybody has a price, what’s yours? So I waited. four years until I found somebody who had trust in me and would allow me to do it. Cinema Canada: Your status here in Canada, did that allow you to make the film ? Max Fischer : Yes, because I am married to a Canadian, I am a Canadian — it was very simple. Cinema Canada : You’ve been accepted as a Canadian director ? Max Fischer: Yes, as soon as | decided to come and live here. Cinema Canada: Part of your reason to come and live here then, is because of the growing film industry. Do you feel that Canada is the place where you can make your films ? Max Fischer: Personally, I think that Canada is the only country in the world today that has a chance of doing something in the film industry that Europe has never been able to do. Let’s face it, | mean this has been my fight for twenty years, and for twenty years I have lost my fight. Pll explain why. I went to the expense in Europe of working my head off, making commercials and other films, which I enjoyed doing because they were the perfect platform for learning the film business — lights, editing, cameras, everything. I bought myself a studio to make myself completely independent ; all the camera equipment you can think of, a sound engineer, and the facilities to explore the possibilities of sound. Then I concentrated as much as possible within my studio on getting the freedom to create films. And I never succeeded. Yes, I made Wet Dreams and | succeed very much in helping others — people like Martin Scorcese, whose first feature film was finished thanks partly to my facilities and the help I gave him. With my equipment] helped Nicholas Ray and lots of other people to finish their films. But still, no matter what you have in Europe, you cannot go with the high price of films: you cannot penetrate world distribution of films. It is impossible. You are blocked, and it’s a terrible situation. Who in the world sees Italian films ? And we all know they are the best. Who does ? A Special Day, yes — but it was the exception. Cinema Canada: And it was a Canadian co-production. Max Fischer : Here we are. Buta brilliant film like Bread and Chocolate, which | saw in Italy nine years ago, and came back shouting that it was beautiful and brilliant, took seven years to get out of Italy. Let's face it, if it isn’t spaghetti westerns or karate films, they don’t get out of Italy. Where are the films that come Cinema Canada/17