The BC arts cuts - what do they really mean to the BC arts community

Note: some of the opinions stated in this article do not represent the author's or Examiner.com personal views or opinions. 

In 2009 the British Columbia provincial government decided to cut the funding for the arts by almost 92%. What was before a miniscule 1% of the provincial budget, or $47 million dollars, would be reduced to $2.65 million by 2012. Groups protested on the streets, BC celebrities like Kim Catrall, Sarah McLachlan and Margaret Atwood spoke against the arts cuts while the Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, Kevin Krueger, was nowhere to be seen or heard (the author tried contacting him for this article but his public relations spokesperson declined). The question on everyone’s mind was: “How do we stop this?” Some members of the legislative assembly spoke against the cuts by stating that the arts actually help BC on a social and economic level. The finance committee has stated (in session) that for every dollar spent on the arts, the provincial government gets 1.36 back. Despite best efforts, each day the arts funding cuts appear increasingly as an inevitable tragedy, which will undoubtedly have severe consequences on the province.

Yesterday, the BC government decided to reallocate some of the budget to BC arts cuts, $46.1 million to be exact, where 10 million will come from the new sport and arts legacy fund. This suggests that the campaigns worked, and the BC government decided to stop the drastic cuts to this sector which made no sense on paper. Yet arts groups are saying that the funding will not be enough , and that this is not sufficient to support the sector. According to some arts groups the provincial government needs to go to 2008-2009 numbers, where the numbers were double. Still some of the pressure is of the government as a 92% was drastic, but the government hasn’t decided where to allocate the money, which is a concern for some filmmakers in the BC community.

“The BC arts cuts will create unemployment in the sector, loss of opportunity for kids, brain drain; community development will be slowed, and it will be a large deficit on the budget” claims NDP Vancouver West End MLA Spencer Herbert. Herbert has been one of the most outspoken representatives against the arts cuts, and is one of the few rays of hope at stopping them. “The BC liberals celebrated arts through the opening ceremonies, yet once the international spotlight is out, the funding is axed.” If the opening ceremonies accomplished anything, it vaunted the love for the arts that pervades in Vancouver. Why is it then that the liberals stopped the funding for short and feature films when more than 75% of British Columbians oppose the cuts? The answer lies in hierarchal faults in the organization of grants, and simple economics.

“Until we start seeing our film as an economic entity, you can bark at the government all you want, but they won’t understand the value of short film... We put a lot of money into short film production... but we don’t take care of that film after we make it” says WGC writer and director Kellie Ann Benz. If anyone knows about how film works here in BC it is Benz, who showed her short film “Awkward” across the globe, debuting in the prestigious Clermont-Ferrand short film festival in France. She states that here in “North America [short films are] still considered a training vehicle. In Europe they are a part of the film-making economy. They are bought and sold like television and features are here. Supported through development, through distribution, strategized by which festivals they submit it to the pinnacle – Oscar nominations. The Irish are the ones that do it best.”

The Irish have three Academy Awards nominations this year: one for best animated feature, “The Secret of Kells”, best short film – live action, “The Door”, and best short film – animated “Granny O’grimms Sleeping Beauty”. But Canadians don’t have to look as far as Europe to see a successful short film market. Quebec is a province which funds short films “at the script stage. They also benefit from mentors and story editors who guide their development through production and even in distribution," explains Valerie Ascah, the production manager for Locomotion Films. SODEC and Jeunes Createurs finance short filmmakers at every stage of development in the province funding as many as 50 short films a year, with budgets up to $75000. In addition to this funding source, short filmmakers can apply to Quebec council for the arts, Canada Council for the arts, PRENDS CA COURT and Videographe to name a few. An example of a successful film, Denis Villeneuave’s “Next Floor” won the Canal+ Award at Cannes, and Villeneuave is now in negotiations with major broadcasters for distribution. In comparison, Sean MacPhearson from BC who wrote and directed the short “Marion Bigsby: Prince of Darkness” is desperately searching for a way to show his film to the world, even though he has been to Cannes himself.

What makes the Quebec film community so striking is that they simply want to tell Quebecois stories. As Matthew Rankin wrote on his curatorial essay, “Quebec Gold”, while the “Anglo-Canadian film producer [thinks to himself] ‘If only I could make this film as culturally neutral as possible, I will penetrate the USA and the whole of the English-speaking world!’ the Quebecois simply wants to preserve his language and culture.” Filmmakers from this region “accept that their market is small and they’re at peace with that. They know they’re not going to be billionaires, but they’re honest about the stories they want to tell”

The variance in funding among the provinces then appears to be rooted in a matter of sovereignty, or a successful attempt to save Quebecois culture; and to display films whose characters are the epitome of Quebecois culture: lost, self-destructive yet superbly humane. The diversity of language cannot be the only one, because as Herbert states, “Ontario [has started] investing in new areas like the arts after the recession, they are thinking creatively seeing as this might work”. British Columbia has already lost a lot of its artists to Ontario, which implies that the lack of funding problem extends to before 2009.

The “BC film community is a community of haters. No company can distribute anything... Cinematheque does nothing to support local people. They don’t put any money into PR. BCAC almost requires you to have an unsuccessful film... Cineworks and BCAC are not proactive about where the films go after they are production” says Sean MacPhearson after being rejected by the Canadian film center three times, the Canada Arts council twice, and once by the BC Arts Council. Ironically, his film was one of the best in the Made in Vancouver film festival, proving that good ideas are almost never funded. MacPhearson says that one can obtain a grant with BC arts funding organizations when “someone else who has been given a grant before gets involved into the project.” Director Jesse Clark and producer Gabriel Caldwell, who directed the magnificent Slamdance film “Latte America”, say that they didn’t even think to apply for a funding “because you know how hard it is to get a grant.” Both directors have also stated that they will move out of British Columbia if it becomes necessary to preserve their artistic integrity because “if you can’t develop as a young artist in BC before you become someone respectable you will leave.” And there lies the biggest problem of these cuts to the film community: brain-drain – or the large emigration of people with certain technical skill due to a conflict.

Everyone interviewed for this article is asking themselves the same question: why should they stay in a place where there is little support for film? One argument for the cuts states that Anglo-speaking directors only seek billion dollar deals. In the case of some BC directors, this is right, for some do use their films as simple “calling-cards,” however those are not the films which achieve global success and eventually bring big deals through atom.com or youtube. Not all directors in BC want billion dollar deals, they simply want their films to be viewed by a larger audience than their family and friends; and they go to Hollywood or Toronto or New York to accomplish that. The BC arts community has created a vicious cycle in which directors leave because they do not feel supported. This abandonment then inspires the BC film industry’s mentality that they don’t know why they should support directors and writers who are simply going to leave, and rightfully so. This cycle of mutual lack of support results in the loss of British Columbia’s stories from reaching audiences.

Great short films like “The Light of Family Burnam”, or “Sandra Gets Dumped” showcase stories of the province, and in a magnificent matter, by portraying characters who employ comedy to cope with situations that would otherwise be met with depression and anguish in films by BC’s neighbours to the south. “Awkward”, Kellie Benz’s film, presents shyness and introversion as being part of the BC mindset, and to some extent so does MacPhearson’s “Marion Bigsby,” along with the rest of the films mentioned in this article. Unfortunately, British Columbian directors have begun to think that in order to gain the opportunity to tell their stories; they will need to leave the province in search of support.

In terms of monetary return, the films supported by the provincial government almost never make a large profit. The most successful films, both critically and commercially, are obviously American productions. This is worsened by the fact that BC has no famous directors. It once had Egoyan, but he left the province to accomplish bigger things. Most of the federal Arts Council grants for media arts go to either Quebec or Ontario because they are becoming more powerful economic forces in the film making business. Many Hollywood films come to BC to shoot because of the favourable exchange rate and because taxes are cheaper (examples include the X-men Trilogy, “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”, “2012”). The BC government will not see any Yankee dollars disappearing, which are some of the main contributors to the 5.2 billion dollar film industry in BC, because Hollywood does not hire locals for the creative aspects of film, they simply hire the crew to work on set. The BC local film community has historically lacked economic efficiency, therefore it is no wonder the BC government decided to cut most of their funds so quickly, while leaving gambling funding untouched.

If BC film directors and writers do not prove that short films can be vehicles of economical success, then the government will not help this community. Unfortunately right now the situation is a catch-22 because to move into a more economical efficient model, funding is required. To be like Quebec and Europe, the funding for short and feature films needs to extend from pre-production all the way to distribution and film festival strategy submission. The old model of funding has not worked because as MacPhearson stated: “The people in charge of the funding are not in touch with the zeitgeist.” Funds are going into films which do not necessarily reflect the BC mentality, and as such are not as “honest” as their Quebecois counterparts. It is clear that there needs to be a major reconstruction so that BC has a model that works on both the festival and commercial circuit. Money needs to be granted to every stage of the film development, especially in distribution, the area in which BC has had its major downfalls.

The major BC arts cuts were tragic, and they would have affected other areas like theatre and music more than film, but filmmakers need to change their approach at making a film before asking for money that they don’t know how to make back. If the BC arts are ever refunded to its full capacity, there needs to be a change in every level of production, which will eventually lead to higher audiences and more recognition around the globe. It is hard to compete against Hollywood stars and productions, but if “Bon Cop, Bad Cop” could do it, then so can BC. There also needs to be a change in the way filmmakers approach films as training vehicles, and start regarding them as income-generating pieces of art that speak to the BC rational. In the digital era, the internet has served as a great way of making income out of a film, but not many people have thought of it as a way of promoting and marketing a film to audiences around the globe. If successful marketing strategies and festival distributions are applied, films can go farther than ever. Fortunately filmmakers are now starting to realize this and will change little by little, and now that the cuts are not as drastic, they may be able to do so.