By René Biberstein
For people who, like myself, are living in the suburbs of a larger city, work may not be the only reason to commute. Over the past eleven years that I've lived in Brampton (nearby Toronto, Ontario), I have yet to see a single Canadian movie played locally. The three theatres in Brampton, as well as those in the nearby suburbs, show only those productions coming from American, or occasionally British, studios. To see a Canadian film, it's necessary to make the hour-long commute, spending up to ten dollars on bus tickets. It's difficult for me, but for those living in rural areas, and wanting to view the work of their fellow citizens, it must be nearly impossible. As a result, young people are growing up on a foreign entertainment industry that dominates their own country. All of these difficulties and impossibilities contribute cribute to a general inconvenience in watching films. With all these problems, I wonder what's wrong with the Canadian movie industry. . .
The first Canadian film I saw was Bruce MacDonald's 1994 story about Indian reservation life, Dance Me Outside. It was later picked up as a CBC series. I later went to see MacDonald's Hard Core Logo as well as Atom Egoyan's Exotica and the East Coast films Margaret's Museum and The Hanging Garden. But it's hard to get into the city, and even harder to get friends in to see the films (often rarely shown and at inconvenient times). Many young people growing up outside of urban centres don't ever get a chance to watch a single domestic film. Most of these films are low-budget, and many certainly "art" flicks. However, it's refreshing to see stories set in Canada, about Canadians, being told.
"From the Americans' perspective, this is a huge market and they don't want to give it up," says Lindsay Gaughn of Dynamics Professional Videosystems. The company, in which he works in the sales department, is based in Mississauga, Ontario &emdash;one of the few Canadian film distributors. Gaughn points his finger at the ownership of that industry. "It depends on the distribution systems. Right now it seems to be controlled south of the border." In fact, he notes that American companies control 95% of film distribution in Canada. Without Canadian films being distributed to theatres, its unlikely that many will specifically request them.Historically, Canada's movie industry has never been strong. In fact, all major pictures were foreign-made until the founding of the National Film Board in World War II. The Board, originally a war-time propaganda tool, became a small manufacturer of documentaries and short films. More recently, most film production has been done independently, but never with anything near popular success.
High school student Kelly Lewars has never seen a Canadian movie. "I don't think people are informed enough to think 'I want to see this movie because it's Canadian and it interests me'," she says. Lewars feels that as long as advertising and publicity of such films are low, "I don't think it's ever going to work."
Another student, Shaun Ragubance, can't recall a single full length film he's seen, either. He thinks that Canada is destined to do poorly in films, because the population isn't densely concentrated. In other countries, showing movies in a few urban centres would make them available to nearly the entire population. "If we send them [Canadian movies] over to Britain, the European market is huge. With Canada, it's a bit hard because we're so widely spread out."
He believes that Canadian content rulings, such as those imposed on radio and television stations, might be helpful. However, Ragubance can't see the industry watchdog, the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission), having the money to expand its operations. "Like the National Film Board, their funding has been going down. It's not really fair, but with health care going down it only makes sense to cut that too."
Gaughn reminds us that the Canadian predicament is not seen in most other nations. "In certain countries like France they have a strict policy," he notes, in reference to national content restrictions. He also gives some support to the notion of Canadian content regulations. This might force the cinemas to do the work to pick up a greater number of Canadian films, Gaughn thinks.
He finds Canada's current method of dealing with low national content &emdash;federal funding for certain films&emdash; ineffective. Gaughn sees Telefilm, the federal agency that dispenses funding, as a biased and exclusionary method of promoting film. "The problem with publicly funded films," he says, "is that they are invariably safe and unchallenging. The downside is that you don't get good films." Gaughn believes that the industry should be more market driven, with funding incentives given to films that seem capable of making money. "I think Bruce MacDonald made his first film, Roadkill, with very little public funding," he says.
But Gaughn can't see a political move to improve the chances of Canadian films anytime soon. And he can't see any American acceptance of such a move. U.S. companies make a large amount of money in Canada, and tend to consider it part of their domestic market. "They won't give up their golden egg without a fight," he says.
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