He wants to put mandatory Canadian movies on TV. Do we want them?
The Globe and Mail
Jan. 24 2013
By Steve Ladurantaye and Simon Houpt
If Robert Lantos has his way, every television-watching Canadian will
become an investor in the country’s struggling film industry, even if
they’re more likely to watch The Bachelor than Barney’s Version.
The flamboyant film producer is leading Canada’s highest-profile
filmmakers in a bid to create a new television channel called
Starlight, which would be dedicated exclusively to the Canadian films
the country’s television networks show no interest in airing.
The group is asking the country’s broadcast regulator to pump the
channel into every home in Canada that subscribes to basic cable
packages, adding about $10 a year to the typical bill after
traditional pricing mark-ups. It wouldn’t just dip into the archives
for content – it wants to earmark about $25-million annually to fund
up to 12 original movies a year that would debut on the channel, prior
to theatrical openings.
`Canadian films, which are heavily subsidized by the government, are
not available to be seen by Canadian consumers, who have indirectly
helped finance their creation,’ Lantos says. `Let us not twist the
arms of the television networks that don’t want Canadian films on
their network, let’s start our own network that only wants Canadian
films.’
Canadians rarely venture to the theatres to see Canadian films. Data
for 2012 compiled by the Motion Picture Theatre Associations of Canada
show that while the country’s box office pulled in $1.1-billion in
2012, Canadian movies accounted for less than 3 per cent of that, or
$25-million. And the country’s broadcasters have largely ignored the
movies as well, opting to fill their Canadian-content requirements
with dramatic series that are easier to market.
Lantos must convince the Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission that viewers across the country would
benefit from a steady diet of domestic films, something they’ve lived
without for as long as there has been basic cable. Other countries
subsidize their filmmakers with levies tied to the broadcast system,
and he believes this `deficiency’ in the Canadian system can be
addressed with a television station.
`It’s a very unusual situation we have in the Canadian broadcasting
industry … the domestic feature film industry is essentially shut
out of the domestic broadcast system,’ he said. `That’s something that
has been very sensitive and frustrating for everyone involved in
Canadian films.’
Lantos is not new to controversial proposals. He launched his career
in 1978, at age 29, by famously staring down the Ontario Board of
Censors after it insisted he cut two minutes from George Kaczender’s
risqué film In Praise of Older Women. He cut 30 seconds instead, and
the film enjoyed a boost of attention at its Toronto International
Film Festival world premiere. Lantos went on to produce other racy
material, including the Blue Lagoon rip-off Paradise and Heavenly
Bodies.
In time, he turned to more mainstream fare, including the film
adaptations of Mordecai Richler’s Joshua Then and Now and Brian
Moore’s Black Robe.
In 1985, Lantos co-founded Alliance Films to produce feature films and
television shows for a variety of networks, including the CTV-CBS
series Due South, CBC’s North of 60, and Night Heat.
A lifelong champion of Canadian film, Lantos has sometimes bitten the
hand that feeds him. In 1991, during his acceptance speech for a
special Genie Award sponsored by Air Canada, he attacked the airline
for not putting domestic films on its flights.
In 1998, Alliance merged with Atlantis Communications to form Canada’s
most powerful independent production and broadcast company, and Lantos
stepped down to make features through his Serendipity Point Films.
Since then, he has had plenty of critical wins, but only intermittent
commercial success. His biggest hit, David Cronenberg’s Eastern
Promises (2007), earned an estimated $56-million at the worldwide box
office. Other films have fared less well:
Atom Egoyan’s Where the Truth Lies (2005) flopped with less than
$4-million, while his adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s Barney’s
Version (2010), a passion project he had nurtured for decades, earned
$8.5-million but failed to live up to Lantos’s hopes for Oscar glory.
His latest project – whose major backers include outgoing Alliance
chief executive officer Victor Loewy and financier David Kassie, as
well as directors such as Cronenberg and Egoyan – joins about a dozen
would-be and established channels seeking so-called mandatory
carriage. Starlight would be largely commercial-free, relying on
subscription fees over the course of its seven-year licence.
The CRTC will hold hearings in April to decide whether any of the
channels meets the requirements, which include a dedication to
Canadian content and a positive contribution to the Canadian
broadcasting industry. While it is under no obligation to grant any of
the services a free pass to the nation’s living rooms, Starlight’s
incoming president Norm Bolen said the channel would provide Canadians
with critically important programming they are unable to obtain
anywhere else.
`I understand the way things are,’ he said. `It’s hard for
broadcasters to promote and market one-offs. They don’t want to
support feature films, that’s not their business model. So rather than
try to impose an obligation on broadcasters as other countries have,
let’s accept the fact about the way things are and fill the gap with a
new idea.’
Still, the odds of success appear to be low. There are only 10
channels enjoying mandatory carriage, including Aboriginal Peoples
Television Network and Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC). CBC News
Network has the special status in French-language markets only, and
its French-language counterpart RDI has it in English-language
markets.
Other channels requesting mandatory carriage include Sun News Network,
Vision TV, EqualiTV, which intends to offer programs of special
interest to disabled Canadians, as well as the CBC-run French service
ARTV, and Dolobox TV, a fledgling service dedicated to user-generated
content for and by Canada’s youth.
Still, Lantos is not dissuaded. `We have a broadcasting act that says
we need Canadian content in our system and we want to have quality,’
he says. `It can’t be Canadian in name alone or a rerun system for
American networks. Isn’t there space on the dial for something that is
100-per-cent Canadian? Can’t we afford to pay a modest amount of money
for that? That is the critical question for Canadians.’
The players
The fledgling film channel Starlight is owned by a who’s who of
Canada’s film industry, including directors, producers and executives:
Victor Loewy: a former Robert Lantos business partner, who earlier
this month left his position as CEO of Alliance Films when it was sold
to Entertainment One.
Niv Fichman: producer, co-founder of Rhombus Media (32 Short Films
About Glenn Gould, Hobo With a Shotgun).
Hussain Amarshi: president and founder of film distributor Mongrel
Media, which began by importing foreign films (The Lives of Others)
but has also put its weight behind recent Canadian films (Stories We
Tell, War Witch).
Patricia Rozema: director (I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, Mansfield
Park).
Denys Arcand: Oscar-nominated director (The Decline of the American
Empire, The Barbarian Invasions).
Guy Maddin: one of the more experimental members of the Winnipeg Film
Group and a cult favourite for his offbeat features (The Saddest Music
in the World).
Atom Egoyan: Cannes-winning, double Oscar-nominated director and
screenwriter (The Sweet Hereafter, Felicia’s Journey, the forthcoming
Devil’s Knot).
Deepa Mehta: renowned director and screenwriter (Midnight’s Children,
Water, Fire).
Paul Gross: star of television (Due South, Slings and Arrows) and
stage who has also written and directed himself in the feature films
Men With Brooms and Passchendaele.
Denis Villeneuve: director and screenwriter (Incendies,
Polytechnique).
Denise Robert: film producer and president of Quebec production
company Cinemaginaire.
David Cronenberg: one of Canada’s best known and accomplished film
directors (Cosmopolis, A History of Violence).