® A PUBLICATION OF BRUNICO COMMUNICATIONS LTD. FALL 2011 TAKE THIS WALTZ: BEHIND THE SCENES FROM TIFF TO SCREEN PLAYBACK’S 2011 FILM & TV HALL OF FAME •• 10 TO WATCH ASTRAL TURNS 50 • GEMINIS PPB.Cover.Tiff.inddB.Cover.Tiff.indd 1 226/08/116/08/11 33:52:52 PPMM &21*5$78/$7,216 $675$/21<285WK$11,9(56$5< 7+$1.<28)25<285&217,18('68332572) 285%86,1(667+528*+2877+(<($56 :(/22.)25:$5'720$1<025( PPB.19704.eOne.Ad.inddB.19704.eOne.Ad.indd 1 225/08/115/08/11 22:24:24 PPMM TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2011 table of contents Director David Cronenberg on set during the fi lming of A Dangerous Method 9 Opening credits 31 Geminis 52 Special awards The Hot or Not list, #altgeminis and Allan Hawco and Adam Barken are Crafting nominations: The Kennedys Microsoft’s crazy new ad tech honoured for their standout and Stargate Universe crews talk Chanel accomplishments and George and alien workshops 12 TIFF 2011 Stroumboulopoulos gets the inaugural Show diaries: Producers, creators, humanitarian nod Film diary writers and directors share the stories Behind the scenes with Sarah Polley’s of how Republic of Doyle, Todd and the 56 10 to Watch Take This Waltz cast and crew Book of Pure Evil and Call Me Fitz came From all corners in the industry, a crop to life The evolution of indie marketing of fresh up-and-coming talent to keep From fi nger puppets to press an eye out for in the year ahead kits, Canadian fi lmmakers and 40 Hall of Fame distributors talk marketing indies Playback welcomes Pierre Juneau, 62 The Back Page Denis Héroux, Frédéric Back, Roger Sad (and funny) tales of shows that 22 Astral turns 50 Abbott, Gilbert Rozon and Tantoo never were A tribute to one of Canada’s most Cardinal into the Canadian Film & successful media companies Television Hall of Fame Cover photo illustration by Tara Hardy, www.tarahardyillustration.com 3 PPB.TOC.2011.inddB.TOC.2011.indd 3 229/08/119/08/11 33:30:30 PPMM PUBLISHER Mary Maddever • [email protected] EDITOR Katie Bailey • [email protected] STAFF WRITER DERANGEMENT, Emily Claire Afan • [email protected] CONTRIBUTORS Rose Behar, Siofan Davies, Mark Dillon, DEPRAVITY AND Lindsay Gibb, Marc Glassman, Kevin Ritchie, Etan Vlessing, Emily Wexler DEBAUCHERY, COPY CHIEF Melinda Mattos EH? BRUNICO CREATIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR As we were in the midst of creating the Fall 2011 issue of Playback this summer, Hollywood Stephen Stanley • [email protected] ART DIRECTOR seemed to suffer a brief bout with senility, only able to reference decades past, its short-term Mark Lacoursiere • [email protected] memory in retreat. PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION CO-ORDINATOR Lionsgate is bringing Dirty Dancing back for a remake, Ridley Scott confi rmed a follow-up to Robert Lines • [email protected] Blade Runner and even cult comic-book classic The Crow caught headlines with casting shuffl es for its update. ADVERTISING SALES What happened? Did I morph into Jennifer Garner in 13 Going On 30? Am I in its remake right now? (416) 408-2300 What gave me great comfort as all of these headlines rolled in from the U.S. were the ones we FAX (416) 408-0870 1-888-278-6426 were writing here in Canada ahead of the Toronto International Film Festival and the 26th Annual ADVERTISING EXEC Gemini Awards. Jessamyn Nunez • [email protected] The second-most-nominated show of the Geminis, HBO Canada’s Call Me Fitz, is an homage to bachelorhood in its most primitive form. Also highly nominated? Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, MARKETING CO-ORDINATOR a Space channel show in which weed, gore and textbooks form a primetime cocktail of fantastic Vakis Boutsalis • [email protected] teenage hedonism. BRUNICO AUDIENCE SERVICES On the fi lm side, two of the highest profi le Canadian fi lms at TIFF, Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz ASSISTANT MANAGER and David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, chronicle, respectively, the secret desires and Christine McNalley • [email protected] hidden betrayals of an average marriage and what TIFF programmers called “a brooding tale of dark desire and the dread that lurks behind genius” in Cronenberg’s portrayal of psychologists Carl ADMINISTRATION Jung and Sigmund Freud. PRESIDENT AND CEO No one would argue that getting money to make anything in Canada is easy, nor is fi nding a Russell Goldstein • [email protected] place for it to go once it’s made. But thanks to our quirky independent fi lmmaking scene, with its VP AND CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER complex web of government and private funding and unduplicated wealth of industry talent, we Omri Tintpulver • [email protected] VP AND EDITORIAL DIRECTOR have a strange sort of freedom. As Todd director Craig David Wallace notes on page 36, “[Todd is] Mary Maddever • [email protected] Canadian in that what we can get away with separates us from international markets.” VP ADMINISTRATION & FINANCE In many ways, this issue is in homage to the forces that have made Canadian fi lm and television Linda Lovegrove • [email protected] what it is today. Shaped by industry icons like Pierre Juneau (page 41), who during his time at the VP & PUBLISHER, REALSCREEN CRTC enforced new rules limiting foreign ownership of Canadian media companies to 20% and Claire Macdonald • [email protected] raising the minimum amount of Canadian content on TV to 60%, to Harold Greenberg (page 22), VP & PUBLISHER, KIDSCREEN the patriarch of Astral Media and namesake of the Harold Greenberg Fund, which takes a chance Jocelyn Christie • [email protected] and invests in brave, uncompromising fi lms that might not otherwise get made. Playback is published by Brunico Communications Ltd., We hope you take the time to enjoy a TIFF fi lm or two and if not, at least gawk at the celebs 366 Adelaide Street West, Suite 100, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5V 1R9 on the TIFF and Gemini red carpets via an episode of eTalk. Out of anyone in Canada, Playback (416) 408-2300; FAX: (416) 408-0870 readers know how long a road it is to that red carpet moment. Internet address: www.playbackonline.ca Editorial e-mail: [email protected] Sales e-mail: [email protected] Katie Bailey Sales FAX: (416) 408-0870 © 2011 Brunico Communications Ltd. All rights reserved. Editor, Playback Printed in Canada. Postmaster Notifi cation Canadian Postmaster, send undeliverables and address changes to: Playback PO BOX 369 Beeton ON, L0G 1A0 U.S. Postmaster, send undeliverables and address changes to: Playback PO BOX 1103, Niagara Falls NY, 14304 [email protected] Canada Post Agreement No. 40050265. ISSN: 0836-2114 Printed in Canada. 4 fall 2011 | playbackonline.ca PPB.Editorial.2011.inddB.Editorial.2011.indd 4 226/08/116/08/11 22:08:08 PPMM GALA INDUCTION CEREMONY • SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 In partnership with Playback congratulates the 2011 Honourees: Industry builder Gilbert Rozon Talent Tantoo Cardinal Creative Frédéric Back Feature Film Denis Héroux Television Pierre Juneau Pioneer Roger Abbott Playback Outstanding Achievement Award Allan Hawco Panavision Award Adam Barken Swarovski Humanitarian Award George Stroumboulopoulos Thanks to all our sponsors Celebrating Playback’s 10 to Watch in partnership with Supporting Sponsors Media Partners Awards Partner PPB.19695.HOF.ad.inddB.19695.HOF.ad.indd 1 226/08/116/08/11 110:430:43 AAMM Keep tabs on all the wins, To red carpets and green futures deals and My fi rst experience with TIFF was decades ago, covering entertainment for a local paper as a student reporter. The greenlights interview was with screenwriter/director Lionel Chetwynd, who was talking passionately about the struggle to make his fi lm — Two Solitudes — and was eloquently frustrated by the irony of having to turn to the U.S. to complete fi nancing on this quintessential Cancon story. Since he’d already won awards for co-writing the script for The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz with the novel’s author and fellow Montrealer, Mordecai Richler, he fi gured tackling another Canadian book, this time by Hugh MacLennan, dealing with Canada’s French/English divide, there’d be a warmer reception in Canada. Not so much. Find them at Little did I know it at the time, but this would be a story I would hear over and over again. But little by little, over the years, the fi lm scene improved as government funders grew stronger and infrastructure grew to the point where there were more windows and support in Canada. While foreign fi lms still have the vast majority of screens in our cinemas, there are more options for getting fi lms seen — certainly since Two Solitudes debuted, the TV market for fi lm exploded with new channels galore. The story of one such fi lm champion, Harold Greenberg, who had faith in a pay TV platform for fi lms and left a legacy of staunch funding for features that kickstarted many an illustrious career, is retold on page 22. With the cost and time of fi lmmaking down dramatically, and the internet giving everyone their 15 minutes of DIY fame, The defi nitive there’s a ton more fi lms vying for attention. Yet, despite new platforms to reach audiences, to truly make a mark — and money — it still comes down to a theatrical launch. In a pre-festival interview with Playback, TIFF head, Piers Handling said, “as a country, we can only afford to market, release, get behind and pay for maybe 50 fi lms.” news source for So it’s still strangely status quo when it comes to building a serious fi lm career and business.