'No Solace in the Dark'

Canada has failed to foster a homegrown film industry, but happily embraces the celebrification of TIFF.

I saw the best minds of my generation / Accept jobs on the fringes of the entertainment industry ...

That riff on Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" – a line from a work of Zadie Smith's – has always struck me as poignant, not only for Generation Y, but also for anyone who has friends or family members who have tried to pursue their art here in Canada.

It is never easy for such outliers. Yet, when promise is unfulfilled, a basic question – How could we have helped those people be what they could have been? – can’t simply be denied by braying about the responsibility of our musicians and actors and filmmakers to make it on their own. We must consider, for instance, that there is also something that can be done at a national regulatory level to support our young artists.

As Rachel Pulfer noted a decade ago, Canadian content regulations have worked, to a considerable degree, for our music and publishing industries:

Cancon [Canadian content] forced radio stations to give Canadian artists access to an audience – up to 35 per cent of the airtime … It's not a success story on the level of the Canadian book business (46 per cent of the books bought in this country are by Canadian authors, as compared to approximately 10 per cent of the music bought here). Still, it's better than the measly two per cent of Canadian box office receipts that our flicks command.

To help the film industry in kind, Flora MacDonald, the Mulroney government's minister of communications, put forth a modest proposal with a bill that would have boosted the number of Canadian films on Canadian screens to 15 per cent. But the bill was derailed by a powerful lobbying effort orchestrated by Jack Valenti, the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America. Things have not changed since: At any one time, you'll be lucky to see Canadian films on three per cent of Canadian screens.

The National Film Board of Canada makes moves to adapt to the future of film.

In terms of MacDonald’s proposal, 15 per cent doesn't seem like much. When you realize the great waves in European cinema were all fostered in eras when those countries had their own content rules requiring at least that percentage, you would think Canada would “get it.” Especially when we saw our own successes in creating markets for homegrown books and music. While those particular industries may be faltering in the bright, shiny, 2.0, multi-platform universe, at least their regulations allow artists to have careers without leaving the country.

But put aside the argument about the predicaments faced by individual artists. When the stories we tell through cinema simply aren't seen, they fail to be a part of the larger cultural conversation. This means that those who are in a place to actually champion our efforts at fostering a successful film industry are put in the unenviable position of having to make the public believe it should care – while still being as solicitous as possible to the studios south of the border.

If you're Carolle Brabant, executive director of Telefilm, you put a happy face on it by talking up " niche markets" and setting the bar low for the Canadian film industry. Other culture-crats will speak of how Canadian filmmakers should look at the small, quirky comedies that come out of the mythical U.S. indie-world, and urge them to elbow their way in there in the land of the twee. This, of course, is like the World's Tallest Dwarf approach to carnival barking. Come see the biggest little work of its kind, folks.

Which brings us to TIFF.