Take One (Mar-Apr 1973)

Last February, a group of roughly three dozen Canadian film people met in Winnipeg to discuss their problems. All the troubled areas were touched, but — more important — it was the first time a clearly defined image of the people behind the problems emerged. What came forth was the vitality of these people connected with the film industry despite the almost unsurmountable difficulties facing them. The Participants: Chalmers Adams, producer of Between Friends; Denys Arcand, director of Rejeanne Padovani: Jack Darcus, director of Wolf Pen Principle and Proxyhawks; Martin Defalco, director of The Other Side of the Ledger and of Cold Journey; Jack Gray, screenwriter of A Quiet Day in Belfast; Andrew Hretzay, Winnipeg's angry young man: Len Klady, organizer of Canadian Film Symposium II: Gary McKeehan, independent filmmaker: Peter Pearson, director of Paperback Hero, President of the Director's Guild, and Chairman of the Council of Canadian Filmmakers; Tom Shandel, director of Another Smith for Paradise; Don Shebib, director of Between Friends and Goin’ Down the Road; John Wright, director of The Visitor. Deus ex machina: The Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC) LEN KLADY: I‘ like to start out on a practical level. Last year when we held the symposium the general mood was that we really make lousy movies but isn’t it great that everyone's working. Now we're faced with quite a different situation. No one is working even though our films are playing in theatres, we're getting good reviews and the films are shown at festivals all over the world. Why has the mood changed so drastically in the past year? ANDREW HRETZAY: Why don’t we socialize the Canadian film industry? We get a million dollars for film stock and with another million we buy equipment. Then we employ everyone under a LIP grant. (laughter) | think it’s time we nationalized our Canadian film industry. The same thing that got Polanski going, that got Czechoslovakian directors started. That’s what we need. MARTIN DEFALCO: Actually the change to the LIP program is a pretty good idea because we have a labor intensive industry. You know we never make money (laughter) and we use up a lot of public funds that would be disruptive in other areas. CHALMERS ADAMS: Yeah, but who decides how much film stock say Pearson gets and how much Shebib gets. Cause Fl tell you if you make it equal, one man’s film will be better. | won't tell which one though. (laughter) | think that what we want to get at is investment. Why people invest? Whether the incentive be by legislation or, uh, glamour. People put money into films because they’re excited by the idea or the people that they’re Supporting. Also, real expectation of financial success. That is that their investment will be payed off with a profit. in the industry that’s been the most important reason for financing films up until recent years. Today, people are looking for ways to protect their investment by way of tax shelters, what have you. A lot of films that have been financed previously were on a kind of incentive program. This is gone now and the only way to 22 ‘ BY JOSEPH BECHSTEIN finance films from now on is gonna be to either convince someone that you have an interesting financial proposition, which may mean slightly more commercial films, or substantial funds from a government or several government sources. JACK GRAY: | think the time has come to recognize or at least acknowledge certain things that we're talking about. You can listen — and | think intelligently — to a commercial argument. But | think we’ve got to remember, always remember, that in this country no rational argument will explain our dilemma nor will it give us any inkling of how we're going to get solutions to it. Indeed, | don’t suppose there are solutions. And if there are solutions, there is no single solution, there are a whole range of solutions. We are a people who are an extraordinary range of regions and groups. Whenever | hear all these neo-colonial or residual colonial arguments that we have got to go out and do it the way other people do it, | really become very angry on the one hand and dismayed on the other. We don’t have to sell whatever basic creative-cultural thing we have. | say bugger that, it’s not worth it. We know it’s not worth it and we are prepared to pay for it. Financing a film is quite simple. Give the CFDC enough money. We have things that are directly relevant to our audience and if we do that well, maybe we'll attract other people. But if we don't attract that first audience, we have nothing. That's what it's about and that’s what financing’s about. It’s abstract, it’s Cultural and it’s very important. It always was. (applause) The more distinctly Canadian it is, the more people will be interested in it. Hazlitt said —and it's a marvellous quote — way back in the beginning of the 19th century, “All art is national in character and execution.” What he means is that it is particular and rooted in something specific. DON SHEBIB: What we are trying to do in the film industry is analogous to trying to build a railroad in 1970. No other technically advanced country in the world has tried to build a film industry in the 1970s. They built them in the 30s. The Quebec industry sprang up because they wanted to see Québécois films. They had to make them because nobody else would. They were forced into it, compacted by their language. We haven't been forced in English-Canada. The reason is that we’re in a unique situation in reference to the United States. GARY McKEEHAN: | work with a group of people called “The Perth County Conspiracy does not exist” and we’re just getting into film. Right now we are doing a feature documentary on migrant farm workers. We've run into bureaucracy, which everyone knows about, but also because of our association with the Boycott Kraft Committee, we’ve been censored in a couple of instances. The networks thought it was politically too touchy or sponsored or whatever. | went to three different sections of CBC, they all said, “Great, (pause) No;” CTV, “Great, (pause) see you next week.” The Film Board, Challenge for Change, were right up front, no bullshit and Global, “Well it doesn’t fit in.” So we were in the position of saying, well we’re making this film. To get the bread to buy the film we had to do essentially what you guys are talking about. We did it in the record industry. We worked for Columbia Records for two years and were “rippedoff” by essentially an American company with “flunkies” in Canada like a lot of film companies. We started by pressing our own record and distributing it through friends. On the basis of sales we're able to finance the beginning of this film and also other things.