Niv Fichman: skipping class to make movies

TAKE ONE, Sept-Nov, 2002 by Cynthia Amsden

"I wouldn't recommend this for others, but it works well for us," Fichman explains with a self--depreciating smirk. "It's a fairly socialist spirit of equality and if you buy into it, as everyone here does, then you're immune to the regular fights about money. We've never dirtied ourselves in those fights." And this, he believes, is the downfall of other companies. Filthy lucre. His tongue is somewhere in the vicinity of his cheek when he points this out while noting, justifiably so, that Rhombus does have a notable track record. Would this be a passive--aggressive success model?

Fichman prefers to call this a marriage of six people, which is a loaded analogy considering therapists say the marital alliance is based on people settling for what they are prepared to live with, while Rhombus isn't about settling. If anything, it's about no compromise. And that is where the interview pivots away from the collective and toward the individual. No compromise is a righteous idea to which more than one production company has laid claim. Rhombus, or at least Fichman, feels he has gone the distance sufficiently so he can hold this up as a merit badge. He offers anecdotal evidence. When financing The Red Violin, the multi--language aspect of the script turned into a deal breaker--lose the languages and risk making a film about bad accents or keep the languages and beg for financing. The script did state that as the location of the film changed, so, too, would the language, but this was often overlooked. "We were in the office of one studio president who literally said, 'You mean this will be in It alian and German and Chinese?' We said, 'Yes, that's what they speak in Italy and Germany and China.' She looked at us, deadpan, and just said, 'Check!' It happened again when New Line picked up the film. They cancelled out at the very last minute for the same reason."

Fichman thinks a bit more and then coils out another example, the six--part Bach cello suites, Yo--Yo Ma Inspired by Bach, Rhombus produced for television in 1997. "In Yo--Yo's mind, all creativity comes from the same place. It's a codification of emotions and it manifests itself in music or dance or literature. Proof of this would be to take the Bach cello suites and create various worlds inspired by them. Yo--Yo wanted the first suite to inspire a garden. I was reluctant. It's one thing to commission a dance but quite another to build a garden. But you can't compromise and that's the project you have to go with. We had three or four years, so we started right away with a garden in Boston and got documentary filmmaker Kevin McMahon to film its creation." Three years later, complications arose in Boston and the whole thing collapsed. Rhombus had half a film that was never going to be finished.

Grappling for an alternative, Fichman and Yo--Yo approached Barbara Hall, the mayor of Toronto at the time, with the idea of building the garden down at Harbourfront instead. "In the mayor's office, Yo--Yo played the cello suites and described how each different environment would work. He would be saying things like, 'Imagine walking through a forest. Imagine children running.' To this day, Barbara says that was the best meeting she took as mayor." That was all very nice, but it wasn't the ending that Fichman had hoped for. "I had a film to deliver. Barbara said we could get a plan approved for the following year and have the garden completed in two. I said, 'TVOntario is broadcasting this in the fall.'" Hall was taken aback by the idea that a municipally based project would have to be completed on a schedule for prime--time television. "Take it or leave it," Fichman said, and to her credit, Hall stepped up to the plate.