Who Threw That Stone?

The Canadian Film Industry did. I'm only throwing it back.

A few weeks ago when I was in Cannes, I was walking home to my flat when my phone rang. It was one of my friends who is one of the head programmers for the Toronto Film Festival. We've always enjoyed a friendly, non-working, cocktail - laden relationship, and while I was navigating the traffic whilst crossing the highway at le Boulevard Republic, he explained that the reason for his call was to invite me to be one of the 10 "Professionals" who choose the Top 10 Canadian films of 2009, and they would be pleased if I would take part.

"Hell Yeah" was my response. Maybe I might have some market value after all, and I was (and am still) very honored.

Two weeks later, and my package of films finally showed up. Now, this also is an extraordinarily busy time as the American Film Market starts next week, so I've got my day job to attend to, plus, a TON of after hours work in order to book my meetings, screen the films I need to see for last minute acquisitions, try and have what resembles a social life, and basically get my ducks in a row. When they finally arrived, I took a quick gander, and I was desperately hoping I'd never say this, but here it is:

I've seen the future of Canadian filmmaking, and the future, my friends, is bleak indeed.

What a pile of crap I've willingly dove into! I know Telefilm (The Canadian Government Funding body for most films that get made in Canada) have the taste of a dead Water Buffalo's anus, but really, this lot is bollocks. Of the 24 films to plow through, and NONE of them are any good or close to being commercially viable, by any stretch of the imagination. I can say this with some authority as I've been in the business for close to 20 years, and have done everything from selling home video, to realeasing films domestically, to acquiring films for North America and International, to selling films internationally... blah blah blah. In short- I've been around the block a few times, and I Do know what I'm talking about.

They are ALL bupkiss. It's an embarrassment. I'm outraged because as a taxpayer, these are where yours and my dollars are going, that they are never going to turn a thin dime, and certainly not repay Telefilm Canada for their investment in a picture that any blithering idiot / bureaucrat with enough sense to rub two matches together, who, after reading the script, should have invested $$ in Bernie Madoff rather than "a Tale of life in a northern British Columbia Town..." Seriously. Just shoot me now. Every year, Canada tries to laud it's homegrown "talent" but instead you get the something close to an allegorical cinematic version of "a wretched hive of scum & villainy..."

So I've spent all my scarce hours preparing for the world's 2nd largest film market by coming home from my difficult, stressful job, and putting yet another bad Canadian film in the DVD player (3 - 4 per night), hoping for the best, but getting the worst. And I mean THE worst! I actually had to stop last night and take a dramatic renewal of purpose. It was so scary that today, I called my friend at TIFF, and said (paraphrased)

Me: "Dude. With the stuff you've sent me, I'm unable to assemble a Top 10 list. I'm unable to even submit to you a Top 2 list. Sorry, but with what you've provided me, I can't give you what you want. These films are THAT bad".

Him: "I know. I'm sending you another 25 or so 2nd week in November, these will be better".

Me: "Oh. Ok. Thanks for letting me know, (and wasting the last 30 or so hours of my life watching dreadful movies)".

Him: "No problem. We appreciate your support. It will get better, but we had to send you everything that was applicable to be to be in contention. It will get better though".

So that's been my life over the last 10 days. Working a difficult, stressful job, of which I'm totally burnt, burnt, BURNT out from, only to blast home, and subject myself to 6 hours of dreadful, and I mean dreadful Canadian films night after night, only to find out that they knew most of them had their challenges all along. The good stuff is coming in a couple of weeks. I should say now that I can't wait. But I won't.

This kind of got away from me, because I started writing this quite late last night. I was dejected about my life, my social life, the idiocy of Telefilm Canada for green lighting (and funding projects) that only more contribute to the decrepit state of Canadian Film, (which contributes more to my misery) when I said "Fuck It". I lay on my floor and started aimlessly flipping through channels, and stumbled upon Bravo's 6 night installment of Monty Python's 40 year anniversary. This one dealt with The Life Of Brian, and in a few seconds my despair turned sideways. John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry's Jones & Gilliam were talking about their favorite scenes from the Meaning of Life, and this came on.

"All I said was, that Halibut was good enough for Jehovah".

This totally made me laugh, while lying on my floor at 1:30 AM, as the ugliness & stress of my recent days melted off.