Post wave: strangers in a strange land

TAKE ONE, Summer, 2000 by Marc Glassman

The great and terrible thing about parliamentary democracy is that the complete agenda of a province or a country can change radically overnight. Mike Harris's Common Sense Revolution shocked Ontario's cultural communities as soon as the Tories took power in 1995. The liberal assumptions of the province's cultural industries were immediately undermined by a regime whose interests appeared to be based solely on the bottom line. Money traditionally spent on the province's periodicals and books, radio stations, and film and television industries was quickly diminished or halted altogether. The Ontario Film Development Corp. (OFDC) saw its funding reduced and its functions limited to the point where it seemed to be no more than a glorified-film-liaison office.

The impact on feature filmmaking in Ontario was devastating. A system had been cobbled together over the previous decade with young filmmakers being encouraged to create features through funding provided by the OFDC and Telefilm Canada. With the provincial funder rendered mute, the number of first films, indeed any feature "art" films produced in Ontario, dropped dramatically. The province's filmmakers were left scrambling, trying to produce works with limited means, as informed members of the public began to wonder if Ontario would ever harvest another bumper crop of directors to match the Atom Egoyans and Patricia Rozemas of the 1980s.

Six years have passed and with it the first fervour of Harris's political initiatives. The economy of the province is strong and business opportunities for below-the-line film crews in Ontario have never been better. The digital revolution has made an impact allowing self-publishing, boutique recording studios and cheaply made independent films and tapes. Do-it-yourself (DIY) is the new cry for an emerging generation of cultural producers. But will the new indie filmmakers have the same impact that the Toronto new wave did? Does a community exist among these new artists? In what kind of a political and aesthetic landscape are they making work?

Surveying the scene in Ontario today, it's obvious that the dire predictions of Harris's many opponents in the cultural fields have proven to be incorrect. Great books are still being published, CDs are being produced and performing artists are still creating scintillating works. Despite diminishing grants, a new generation of writers, dancers, painters, actors and photographers is emerging with a refreshing kick-ass attitude.

The hottest and hippest art form these days is film, so it's no surprise that DIY is strong here. Graduates of film programs such as Sheridan and Ryerson and numerous independent spirits are flooding the membership roles at LIFT (The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto) and other co-ops throughout the province. The Canadian Film Centre (CFC), operating under the dynamic leadership of Wayne Clarkson, formerly the head of the OFDC in its glory days, has produced dozens of shorts and a handful of features by upcoming filmmakers who attend this prestigious and pragmatic learning institution. Canadian television series and MOWs provide more opportunities for local talent as do the countless American-financed films [see previous article, ed.] that are shot in Ontario every year.

So no one is starving in the provincial film world, but no new Egoyans appear to be looming on the horizon either While filmmakers, like all artists, are getting on with their work, the lack of a nurturing environment is slowing down the progress of many important directors. Clement Virgo is one of the finest talents operating in the Canadian scene today. His short, Save My Lost Nigga' Soul, and feature, Rude, were produced through the Film Centre and given launches at the Toronto International Film Festival. Virgo recalls that in pre-Harris days, "the Film Centre developed a program called A Summer Lab where they took a bunch of filmmakers of colour from around the country and brought them to Toronto for a month. In my group were people like Mina Shum (Double Happiness) and Stephen Williams (Soul Survivor). There was a definite sense of community. There was a different government in this province then and you definitely felt like you were part of a mainstream, that there was a movement to include people that had been shut out of institutions." Virgo has spent the past five years developing a second feature film, Love Come Down. Rude had been a critical success on the festival circuit, but it didn't make money. In the previous era, he would likely have been given financing for a second try. Never a whiner, Virgo simply went off and made two very interesting TV movies, The Planet of Junior Brown and One Heart Broken Into Song, while working on his new feature, which will be released later this year. With less government support, he continued his career But one has to wonder: how many Virgos have been shut out of a system that no longer supports Summer Labs and why did it take the director of Rude half a decade to make another feature?