Reitman tells producers to focus on original ideas, not what’s Canadian content

Producer/director Ivan Reitman told Canadian producers that they should pay less attention to qualifying for tax credits and fulfilling Canadian content quotas, and more on original ideas. Speaking at the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA) conference last week, he encouraged Canadian producers, in the absence of a studio system here, to ensure productions get completed and seen. An excerpt of his keynote address appears below. We pretty well speak the same language they do down south, the exchange rate is advantageous, various provinces offer subsidies, and rebates, the federal government makes investments in both television and film productions and compared to most western democracies we work cheap, so why are so few Canadian films being made? And why have so few movie goers seen the Canadian films that were actually produced? Is it a failure of will or perhaps it is a failure of vision? Can it be a failure bred by over reliance on tax deals, government subsidies and institutionalized film making? Could it be a failure actually encouraged by our national media? And finally is it a failure that grows from a misplaced and a misapplied fear of having our culture swallowed and stolen from us? I am concerned that the answer could be all of those things. For instance, let’s talk about financing – look I am all for subsidies – all for government investment in the arts. Frankly, I don’t think they do enough of it but ironically it could be this over reliance on government monies that creates problems for Canadian producers. The Canadian producer has been trained and encouraged to focus on qualifying for a range of content rules and points set by an ever changing platoon of politicians and bureaucrats. Unfortunately this intense focus on technical criteria sometimes means that creating films for the real world is ignored. The audience is forgotten. It’s as if successfully navigating the minutiae of this hermetically sealed world of institutionalized world of film making genetically selects Canadian producers for failure...I am not advocating the abolishment of Canadian content rules – I am encouraging a new way of thinking in your creative process… First a few words about our excessive attempt to define Canadian art. It inevitably leads to heartache – I remember early in my career I had just produced, actually my second film, It was David Cronenberg’s first movie (Shivers)…I will never forget a long review essay by a well known Canadian critic. It is not just that he hated the movie, he attacked David and I and the Canadian Film Development Corporation as an investor in this enterprise for making a film that he felt wasn’t Canadian. ...He argued that the film’s very subject matter, tone, genre was un-Canadian. I remember Cronenberg and I trying to figure that one out – maybe because there were no wheat fields we speculated. ...The discussion and criticism of what properly constitutes a Canadian film goes on all the time in our media. It is usually a message that criticizes a success, a particularly international success, and praises the experimental and the obscure. Producers working in this country can’t help but be affected by the constant, condescending negativity. My advice, try to ignore these stories...And regarding the country’s fear about being swallowed up culturally – it is not going to happen. Our nation is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world, thanks to an enlightened and generous immigration policy, Canada is truly the great melting pot of the 21st century. Sure Canadians watch a lot of American movies and television shows – the whole world does. We watch because we want to and no quotas, no trade restrictions and no incentives will stop us from watching what we want. I don’t believe this is a problem for us – well no more than it is for Americans...In this country the producer can rise to the top of the filmic food chain. So deciding to take responsibility is a good start…Can a tiny small budget production really find an audience out there? Well it absolutely can – happened to me a bunch of times very early on...Remember just because you are small doesn’t mean you can’t be original. To be original doesn’t mean you have to be obscure or pretentious or dull. It means finding or developing something the world hasn’t seen before or at least an old story, told in some new fresh way.

Reitman tells producers to focus on original ideas, not what’s Canadian content

Broadcast | February 13, 2003

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