Even the best laid plans often go awry. And sometimes the half-best-laid plans, too.
Last week, when the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced that major foreign streamers would have to contribute 5 per cent of their annual domestic revenues to support the Canadian screen sector, you could practically hear the homegrown cheers in Dolby surround sound, so conditioned is the industry to instead receiving bad news. (Don’t worry, there’s still more than enough of that to go around, too!)
As part of the Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11), any streamer with revenues of more than $25-million inside this country – such as Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video – will have to soon contribute money to the Canada Media Fund, the Indigenous Screen Office, diversity-forward agencies such as the Black Screen Office, an independent local news fund and Canadian-certified independent production funds. But while Canada’s small-screen storytellers are set to reap long-delayed and much-deserved rewards from the disruption caused by U.S. streaming giants, one major group is being left in the ironically appropriate dark: filmmakers.
Currently, there are no C-11 funds being set aside for Telefilm, the federal agency that supports so much of Canada’s film sector. Nor are there any real obligations for streamers to work with Canadian film producers and distributors to generate fresh Canadian movies.
While the CRTC’s new levies will ensure the survival of Canadian content – stories told by Canadian artists, for Canadian audiences and with the rights remaining in the hands of Canadian producers who in turn keep the industry running – the CRTC conveniently forgot that movies, which make up at least half the content on major streaming platforms, even exist.
While details are frustratingly scant on how the CMF will administer its funds, the organization is primarily focused on supporting television and digital media. The ISO and BSO are similarly split in focus between series, digital projects, and movies, facts that have not gone unnoticed by players involved in the Canadian feature-film industry, which generated $436-million in domestic labour income last year, according to a recent report from the Canadian Media Producers Association.
In a strongly worded statement issued last week, the Regroupement des producteurs indépendants de cinema du Quebec (RPICQ), a coalition of major Quebec film producers including Denis Robert (The Barbarian Invasions) and Pierre Even (Brooklyn), accused the CRTC of “abandoning cinema” and leaving the industry with “crumbs.”
“Feature film production and distribution have been strongly impacted by streaming platforms, which have permanently altered the way audiences access Canadian productions. At a time when feature films are one of the pillars of Canadian content’s influence around the world, it is essential that the sector have direct access to the benefits of the new system put in place by the CRTC,” members of the RPICQ said. “Anything less is inconceivable, unfair and unacceptable.”
While the RPICQ – whose members were so incensed that no one thought to fact-check its statement in order to prevent misidentifying the Indigenous Screen Office as the “Aboriginal Screen Office” – might be asking for too much by demanding 20 per cent of the levies collected from streamers as is the case under France’s similar law, the Canadian film world has every right to feel unjustly ignored. The Canadian theatrical sector just enjoyed a strong year – total 2023 box-office revenue for homegrown films increased 148.8 per cent from the year before – so to dismiss it just as C-11 is getting off the ground is thoughtless.
Naturally, Telefilm feels similarly – although being a federal agency, the organization must tread delicately.
“With at least 60 per cent of the content offered on digital platforms being feature films, the impact of cinema on the creative and cultural sectors is undeniable,” Julie Roy, chief executive of Telefilm, said in a statement to The Globe, echoing comments that she made on stage at the Banff World Media Festival this past Monday. “Telefilm will remain involved in these consultations, to foster collaboration and reinforce the specificity of cinema, and the need to support the industry’s artisans in this dynamic ecosystem.”
The absence of feature-film support isn’t the only dent in the CRTC’s latest measures, of course. There is still the curious demand to support local news, even though Netflix and its fellow U.S. giants have seemingly no ambitions to get into the regional-journalism game. The CRTC still is a long way’s off from updating the definition of what, exactly, “Canadian content” means today. And there hasn’t yet been any discussion on the critical importance of promotion and marketing CanCon, versus merely subsidizing production of it.
But this slow, gradual, oh-so-Canadian C-11 process only means that there is still time for the CRTC to course-correct, and ensure that all the players in Canada’s screen sector live to see another, brighter day.
“From everyone I’ve spoken with across the industry, this feels like a good start from the CRTC – we’re just a little disappointed in the weight and distribution of it,” says Noah Segal, co-president of Elevation Pictures, Canada’s largest independent film distributor and production company. “But we’re hopeful that this is the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it.”