The_Hollywood_Reporter__February_07_2018

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production team — between a male or female
applicant, is favoring projects directed and/or
written by women.
“We want to create a path to success,” says
Telefilm executive director Carolle Brabant.
“We want to reward the success of the first
features by having emerging directors make
their second film.”
Take Werewolf, writer-director Ashley
McKenzie’s debut feature about youth and drug
addiction in a small Nova Scotia mining town.
The indie received microbudget financing
from Telefilm and became a critical hit on the
film festival circuit after bowing at Toronto
and screening at Berlin.
Now McKenzie is eyeing possible Fast Track
financing as she develops her second feature.
“There’s a gap for filmmakers to take
the next step after their first feature,” she
says, adding that Telefilm has helped to
shorten the time she and her producer Nelson
MacDonald need to secure financing for their
sophomore effort.
Brabant says Canada’s push for gender parity
has helped alter long-standing perceptions
in an industry where female filmmakers have
become accustomed to discouraging barriers
to the industry. “It has made women realize,
‘Well, it can happen,’ ” she says.
“It’s comforting to know you can get your
foot in the door,” adds Sonia Boileau, who
leveraged Telefilm investment for her debut
feature, Le Dep, to develop her second film,
Rustic Oracle, about an 8-year-old Mohawk girl
searching for a missing sister.
The push for gender parity has implications
beyond Canada. Jordan Canning, who
HOW CANADA’S GENDER-
EQUALITY INITIATIVES
ALREADY ARE PAYING OFF
In a little over a year, female-led projects
backed by Telefilm have more than doubled
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
44%
17%
Films directed
by women
Canada
Spotlight
46%
22%
Films written
by women
2017
2015
In November
2016, Telefilm
introduced
its initiative
to improve
gender parity.
Source: Telefilm
Canada, Women in
View on Screen
directed more than a dozen short films before
completing her first and second features, We
Were Wolves and Suck It Up, respectively, says
Telefilm’s Talent to Watch and Fast Track
programs can help open doors in the U.S. and
other foreign markets.
“Once you have two features, you’re hopefully
at a level where you can access funding
in different countries and team up with international
co-producers,” she says.
With the various gender-parity initiatives
gaining steam, insiders say the lure of financing
is also leading filmmakers to rethink
projects from the conception point. “In the
general community at large, people are just
hungry to attach women to projects and slates,
because it’s smart from a tactical viewpoint.
I’d do the same,” says Molly McGlynn, whose
debut feature, Mary Goes Round, was produced
through Telefilm’s Talent to Watch program.
Toronto-based director Michelle Latimer says
the initiatives help female filmmakers avoid
“going up against the old guard.” After the
success of her documentary short film Nucca,
which screened at Sundance and Toronto,
Latimer nabbed a yearlong filmmaking
fellowship with Laura Poitras’ (Citizenfour)
documentary unit Field of Vision.
“[Telefilm] is democratizing the way we
secure film financing, and it’s particularly
good for younger filmmakers who can’t go
the regular financing route,” Latimer says.
The Canadian film sector is also focusing
on hiring more women in key positions
throughout the industry. Jane Tattersall,
senior vp at Sim Post Toronto, who supervised
the sound editing on Hulu’s The
Handmaid’s Tale, says she’s hiring more women
as mixers and editors in a traditionally maledominated
business.
“I’m not being idealistic or doing favors,”
she says. “It’s much more selfish — the workplace
is more interesting and more normal
when you have a mix of women and men.”
Marjolaine Tremblay, VFX producer and
supervisor at Rodeo FX, insists that the
Canadian industry needs to allow women to
move from management and backroom jobs
to active creative roles, including overcoming
technical VFX challenges.
“I have a great employer now that believes
in all of my skill sets and supports me all the
way,” says Tremblay.
Another point of emphasis for Minister
Joly is creating a healthy environment in
the Time’s Up era. To that end, she says the
Canadian industry now has a zero-tolerance
policy for workplace harassment.
“The #MeToo movement for us is clearly a
fundamental change of culture,” she says. “It’s
changing the way people will interact with
each other and make sure there’s more respect
between men and women, and ensuring the
entertainment-sector workplace, as all workplaces,
is much safer.”
T
he Baltimore of 1962 is
meticulously re-created
in Guillermo del Toro’s
multi-Oscar-nominated sci-fi
romance The Shape of Water.
From an iconic, neon-lit diner
to an ornate movie theater, the
film revels in Americana from
another age, making the fact
that it was shot in and around
Toronto all the more
impressive. The film
marks del Toro’s
third collaboration
Dale with producer —
and Toronto native
— J. Miles Dale and is the director’s
fourth consecutive feature
to be shot in Canada. Dale talked
to THR about why the Mexican
auteur now calls Toronto home
and the Oscar odds for Shape
of Water.
Toronto hosted shoots for earlier
Oscar best picture winners like
TURNING A
TORONTO SUBURB
INTO STOCKHOLM
The Ethan Hawke thriller Stockholm
chronicles the real-life 1973 bank heist
in the Swedish capital that produced the
term “Stockholm Syndrome” — shorthand
to describe when captors and captives
form an unusual bond.
With a modest budget of $10.5 million,
Canadian co-producer Nicholas Tabarrok
effectively cobbled together numerous
BTS: COURTESY OF FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES. SHAPE: KERRY HAYES/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX. DALE: BARRY
KING/GETTY IMAGES. STOCKHOLM: COURTESY OF DARIUS FILMS. WAPEEMUKWA, FOROUGHI: COURTESY OF
SUBJECT. MCLEOD: COURTESY OF JIVE PR + DIGITAL. ENGLISH: COURTESY OF GAT PR. SANCHEZ: LAURENT GUERIN.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
78
FEBRUARY 7, 2018