Boosting our film heritage
With dozens of Oscar nominations to their credit, Canadian movies have a storied past, and they’re still big. It’s the opportunity to see them that got small. Even award-winning Canadian productions are rarely screened outside big cities, and television in this country has all but abandoned domestic feature films.
To rectify this neglect, a group of Canada’s most accomplished filmmakers is calling for a new English-language television channel exclusively dedicated to airing, and expanding, the cultural birthright that is this nation’s cinema. They deserve to succeed.
Called Starlight, the proposed new movie channel would deliver Canadian programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week — mostly theatrically released films and documentaries — all presented without commercial interruption.
There’s more: revenue from Starlight would pump upward of $22 million into a fund financing eight to 12 new Canadian feature films a year. Not only would Canadians gain access to a big part of their heritage, but bright young filmmakers, just starting out, would have new opportunities to thrive. The people behind Starlight pledge that at least 70 per cent of its revenue would go toward Canadian programming.
“We are trying to do something no one else has done,” celebrated film producer Robert Lantos told the Star’s editorial board this week. “We are going to invest 70 cents of every dollar right back into the system.”
But there’s a catch. For these numbers to work, and for Starlight to be as widely accessible as possible, the service has to join a select few channels granted “mandatory carriage” by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Satellite, cable and Internet-based television providers must deliver a channel with that designation and — unless those companies swallow the cost — subscribers must pay for it.
Lantos, leading the push for Starlight, says the new service would bill providers 45 cents a month per subscriber, making it considerably more expensive than any existing mandatory carriage channel. And a$5.40 yearly cost like this could typically double by the time the cable and satellite companies pass it on to consumers.
The response from big providers has been predictably harsh. Critics are attempting to cast Starlight as unnecessary, and argue that mandatory carriage would be tantamount to funding it through a tax on viewers.
That’s unfair. The 10 channels already enjoying mandatory carriage provide news and information to French minorities in much of Canada and the English minority in Quebec; there’s an aboriginal channel; Parliament and public affairs coverage; service for the disabled, and The Weather Network. These channels warrant special status because they embody Canadians’ respect for inclusion, diversity and shared access to important information. And there’s a good argument for putting Starlight among them.
Canadian-content regulations have revolutionized the domestic music industry and television programming, but no such protection extends to what is shown in Canadian cinemas. And rightly so. Since their earliest manifestation — in flickering, silent projections — movies have been the most international of art forms.
The best way to bring more Canadian feature films to domestic eyes isn’t through dictating what’s on movie screens, but with a widely accessed television channel dedicated to promoting and celebrating homegrown cinema.
This country has produced roughly 3,500 feature films and documentaries, including critically acclaimed dramas like Eastern Promises and The Sweet Hereafter, quintessentially Canadian fare such as Passchendaele and Maurice Richard, and even lowbrow comedy like Meatballs. It’s a mixed canon, fully capable of entertaining but also of enlightening Canadians about themselves and what their shared creativity has accomplished.
This country would be best served if cable and other TV providers delivered Starlight to viewers with as low a markup as possible. But even at $9 or $10 a year, the nation would be richer through renewed connection to a legacy that few could otherwise access.
The CRTC is to hear arguments in late April on whether to grant mandatory carriage to Starlight or to several other applicants seeking this status, including the Sun News Network. None of them has more potential than Starlight to brighten Canadian culture.
The best way to bring more Canadian feature films to domestic eyes isn’t through dictating what’s on movie screens, but with a widely accessed television channel dedicated to promoting and celebrating homegrown cinema