By Nicole Soroka
Marguerite Pigott has stood under blinding, luminous stage lights as an actress, sat in a director’s chair and spent long hours tapping her keyboard as a script developer. Pigott fell in love with acting as a young girl and pursued a career in the spotlight until around age 30, when she decided that, in order to have the life she desired, she’d have to leave show business behind. But she found a new career helping the industry instead of making films.
As Toronto’s film commissioner and director of entertainment industries, Pigott now spends her days bringing new opportunities to filmmakers and facilitating the creation of Canadian stories. “If you tell someone the right story at the right time, you can absolutely change their life,” said Pigott.
In the quest to create shifts within the industry, Toronto has landed a deal that holds the potential for change.
In January, Amazon MGM Studios struck a deal with Pinewood Toronto Studios. It guarantees the use of five new sound stages, workshops, tax credits and employment of local filmmakers and crew. However, even with the deal, the Canadian film industry is still lacking support for the creatives behind original Canadian content. One thing holding back domestic productions is that filmmakers aren’t sure where to look for cash. Financing movies is tough and gaining support for small, independent projects is an exhaustive process. In recent years, Canada has also seen a decrease in domestic feature films in theatres, due in part to COVID-19. In 2021, Canadian theatres released 92 domestic films, a decline from 145 in 2019. Meanwhile, there were 141 foreign feature films shot in Canada in 2021 and 171 in 2022. While data suggests that original Canadian film productions are on the rise, it’s uncertain whether factors like the Amazon MGM Studios deal will be enough to spark hope within the Canadian film industry.
Pigott and her colleagues are ecstatic Amazon MGM Studios is investing in Toronto over other locales. When speaking about the deal, she expressed her appreciation for the work that the studio is already putting into producing original Canadian content, like Prime Video’s new Canadian show, Luxe Listings Toronto.
However, it’s important to note that productions from Pinewood Toronto Studios by Amazon MGM Studios cannot be classified as Canadian content if they’re not produced by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. According to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, everyone credited as a producer must be Canadian in order for the project to be considered a Canadian film, among other considerations. Meanwhile, as the number of annual Canadian feature film releases continue to recover, there is limited revenue from original domestic projects. The Amazon deal is not a promise of increased Canadian content, but it does mean a growing number of local production spaces will reserved for American projects.
Last December, Matthew Johnson, the Canadian filmmaker behind Blackberry, expressed frustration with the current state of the Canadian film industry in Maclean’s. Johnson explained there’s plenty of opportunity for more Canadian films, if only funders were taking advantage of the possibilities. Since many independent funders, like Telefilm Canada, won’t finance projects owned outside of Canada, they lose out on helping make potential blockbusters into Canadian-success stories.
“If Telefilm invested in American-owned movies by Canadian filmmakers, it would be rolling in cash,” Johnson wrote. “If we were incentivizing studios to take risks on Canadian writers and directors, they’d be knocking down the doors of every film-school graduate in the country.”
When Canadian directors, actors and filmmakers go on to create successful, critically-acclaimed films, their projects are frequently financed by American studios, like Jason Reitman’s Juno and, more recently, Sarah Polley’s Women Talking and Celine Song’s Past Lives.
Canadian actor David James Lewis, whose credits include Man of Steel and Child’s Play, voiced a similar opinion. While he’s Canadian, Lewis is often required to film across the U.S. As he shared his appreciation for working on Canadian films, Lewis added that the biggest names in Canadian filmmaking often land in the United States. “We don’t have a star system in Canada,” said Lewis. “Any time somebody starts to make it, they immediately go south.”
Lewis’ latest project, Re: Uniting, is an independent Canadian film written and directed by Laura Adkin and produced by Krista Rand. Originally, Telefilm rejected their application, which led Adkin and her team to seek private investors. Though Telefilm funding eventually came through, private investment is what kept Re: Uniting alive.
In Canada, there are a handful of funding resources for Canadian filmmakers. Telefilm Canada, The TELUS Fund and the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund all offer funding to filmmakers. However, if a proposal is rejected, some filmmakers feel as though there is very little education around possible next steps for funding.
Adkin said many filmmakers take financial rejection as a permanent constraint, rather than a roadblock. “What I’ve noticed in the Canadian film industry with independent filmmakers is it’s a double edged sword, the amount of funding that we have,” said Adkin. “There’s this mentality where you either get the financing from the government or you don’t make your film.”
Adkin and Rand explained many filmmakers don’t know how to locate resources for private financing. Many filmmakers have approached Adkin and Rand since Re: Uniting’s run on the festival circuit, asking how they found investors. “I think it’s about finding ways to make other people see how much talent we have here,” said Adkin.
In Toronto, Pigott is raising awareness for the local talent that Ontario has to offer the filmmaking industry. She has explained that the Amazon MGM Studios deal is a huge step in the right direction and proves there is confidence in Toronto’s film industry going forward. However, Amazon MGM Studios’ belief in the Toronto film industry won’t fix all of the problems facing local filmmakers. Industry resources and government support is necessary in order to drive the future of original Canadian film production forward.
Regardless, the question remains whether the industry would rather have a bigger impact on the production of foreign films or focus on expanding the possibilities that Canadian-born talent has to offer. In terms of the deal, Pigott said, “[Amazon MGM Studios] are sending a signal to the rest of the industry that Toronto is L.A., Toronto is London, Toronto is a global center in this industry.”
