Niv Fichman: skipping class to make movies

TAKE ONE, Sept-Nov, 2002 by Cynthia Amsden

Location: Lanzarote, in Spain's Canary Islands.

Cast: Jose Saramago, Don McKellar and Niv Fichman.

Background: After being summoned to Lanzarote by Saramago to discuss the possibilities of getting the rights to turn to his book Blindness into a film, Fichman and McKellar have spent hours talking about everything except what they came there to discuss. The novel, which won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998, is an allegorical tale about an epidemic of blindness that starts to spread in a nameless city. A concentration camp-like asylum is founded to isolate the blind, who see only white light. A doctor's wife follows her husband to the asylum, and around them gathers a small group of people who try to maintain some moral values among the internees, when violence starts to escalate.

"We didn't know exactly where Saramago was going with his questions, except he did say he felt cinema destroys the imagination, and I couldn't argue with that," recalls Fichman, "but apparently we said all the right things and we got on really well." After a few hours, the author said: "Okay, you can give this a shot." Slightly stunned by the abrupt concession, but unsure what Saramago meant, Fichman said: "What?"

Saramago: "Well, you know. You can try it out."

Fichman: "What?" Content to dance the dance of negotiation, content to exercise patience, hold back, to wait, Fichman knew that if his company, Rhombus Media, was going to get the go ahead, it would have to be in so many words; words the author was not saying. Silence.

Fichman (in his head): "Just say it!!!!"

Saramago: "I'm going to give you the rights to the book."

Breathing resumes and with this, Fichman and McKellar close the deal on the Blindness acquisition. Aside from the anecdotal entertainment, this is a cameo of how Niv Fichman works: never alone and preferably in harmony with counterbalancing talents. There is much evidence to show this is a signature trait. Rhombus Media is not Niv Fichman, but Niv Fichman is a primordial component of Rhombus Media, the Toronto production house responsible for some of the finest Canadian features in recent years-Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Last Night and the Academy Award- winning (for its musical score) The Red Violin, the single most successful art-house feature ever produced in this country.

In an industry where ego is not only an issue, it is, in fact, often the industry itself, Niv Fichman is an anomaly. The dialogue at the beginning of our first interview involved a question of clarification from the subject of the profile. "Don't you want to do an article about Rhombus?" By his own admission, he is not devoid of ego; however, he does not appear to require a "sycophantocracy" in which to thrive.

Indeed, a Web search on Niv Fichman produces remarkably little. Search under Rhombus Media and there is ample content. Search under Rhombus' awards and one is inundated. This is a deliberate strategy, although the use of the word "strategy" might leave an aftertaste of calculation that is more corporate than Fichman would accept. "Rhombus is a collective. It's not that I would stop a journalist from writing about just me, or not want it to happen, but articles generally end up being about Rhombus."

Rhombus Media, as it exists today, is an ecosystem of 12: six partners; six staff. How it arrived at its present form might qualify as Darwinian evolution if there were the requisite bodies left on the side of the road, but the three who seeded the original idea-Barbara Willis Sweete, Larry Weinstein and Fichman--are still in full bloom. What is more curious is that there was no original mandate because the formation of Rhombus blessedly predated expressions like "vision statement." From a market-development standpoint, the success of Rhombus Media progressed without the impetus of an overriding marketing objective. "We have all kinds of MBAs coming around to study this company," says Fichman, "and I tell them I don't think this company is a very good example."

Over the years, the genesis of Rhombus has abbreviated itself in the telling, but its current brevity highlights the original goodwill more than the factual play-by-play. "We [Willis Sweete, Weinstein and himself] got together at school and hung out. In 1979, there were hardly any production companies and none of us were on the radar at that point. After several painful years, we realized we were good at demystifying the performing arts with cinema, using humour and music- video techniques. It didn't matter that they were about high art. They were just entertaining movies we made for our friends and ourselves."

Fichman, tall, lean and visually without contrivance, talks with his hands. Fingers, to be more accurate. By watching them, the punctuation of his thoughts becomes apparent. Twenty-three years into his game and, when pressed, he can't deconstruct the psychodynamics of Rhombus. He does, however, recognize that the group has matured, in a business-definition sense, moving from being generalists to specialists. "Up to the point of Making Overtures: The Story of a Community Orchestra (made in 1984 and earning Willis Sweete an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary), we were all doing pretty much the same thing. We'd all produce or we'd direct. It was with that film when we first tried to break out for ourselves. In fact, I was the least involved in that particular project. That was Larry Weinstein's first film to direct, and Barbara was the producer. Since that time, Larry and Barbara have matured more as artists and they want to try different things. I've done mostly the production work and they've directed, and we have other partners who've come on board.