Movies are an integral part of our everyday lives. Here in Quebec, we are privileged to have a strong film industry that caters to both languages. However, the English language film scene is lost amidst the larger francophone productions that are released every year. It is no surprise that most of the funding and allocation of money is granted to Le Cinema Quebecois. To further the concern, we are in troubling economic times. The arts are being cut from the government’s budget and that leaves little resources for young filmmakers. In some cases, these filmmakers have out of sheer will and sacrifice, self-financed their productions and released their movies through small distribution companies. In spite of numerous obstacles, movies like Who is KK Downey? have made headlines at festivals in the last year. English cinema is still trying to find its place in Quebec at the cost of young filmmakers struggling to make movies with little allocation of money and opportunities.
Kidnapper Films
Matt Silver is a very busy man, he works out of Montreal as a screenwriter, director, producer and actor. For the movie, Who is KK Downey?, he did double duty as an actor and a co-screenwriter. The movie won best movie at the Boston underground festival and also won an award at the San Jose movie festival. According to the filmmaker, he does acting gigs to pay the bills but he much rather be directing or writing feature film. He is a member of Kidnapper Films, a production company that has made sketch comedies and short films since 2003. Matt believes that there is a vibrant scene of young Anglo filmmakers in Quebec. He does admit however that getting productions off the ground through Telefilm or Sodec is quite difficult. Kidnapper Films had to finance who is KK Downey themselves by raising $125,000. Pat Kiely, a young filmmaker and member of Kidnapper Films said: “We always thought that we wouldn’t get funding for this movie, so we decided to go a different route.” The route of self-financing a film is one of the options that filmmakers must deal with if they choose to make a movie that does not fit the Mandate of the governing bodies that allocate funds for English films in Quebec. If you do however fall within the guidelines for funding, then you might be under some constraints to make a movie that is in the image of what Sodec and Telefilm want to do.
Tamas Wormser
Tamas Wormser is a young filmmaker who founded the production company, Artesian films. His films include Faces of the Hand, The Ring, Step Up! and recently Traveling Light: artists on the move. When asked about the difficulty in getting government funding to make English language films in Quebec, he responded: “come up with a film “sans dialogue.” According to Wormser there is a definitive problem when it comes to funding English language films in the province. A disproportionate amount of money being allocated to Francophone productions. The figure is something around 20% of the funds going to English language films. That means there is a large amount of money raised for film productions every year in the province. For young filmmakers, this can be an insurmountable obstacle to achieve their dream.
Concordia Film School.
At Concordia’s film school, the next generation of filmmakers is emerging. We spoke with Ryan, who is in his last year at Concordia’s Film Production program. He is worried that there will not be enough money in grants available next year due to the economic situation and Prime Minister Harper’s plan to eliminate money from the Arts. “It’s a difficult situation to be in but at I am optimistic because of all the success young Anglo filmmakers have had in the last few years.” On the question of young talent leaving the province, Ryan responds: “that has always been a problem in Quebec. Young talent is leaving but I don’t think that is a recent problem.”
The issue of funding is difficult to resolve. The most important point from this debate is that Quebec is the best place in North America for funding young filmmakers. Recently, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper has slashed millions of dollars in Arts funding. It has been increasingly more difficult for anyone to find financing for motion pictures no matter what the language of the film may be.
Jose Espinoza - Hello, I am a journalist who specializes in sports, travel and the arts. I have done work in the boxing venues around Quebec and ...
