Launching Co-production Negotiations with India at the Toronto International Film Festival

Toronto, Ontario
September 8, 2010

Ladies and gentlemen,

It's great to be here in Toronto as the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) gets ready to welcome festival goers to its new venue. I look forward to attending the opening tomorrow evening.

TIFF gets bigger and better every year, and its resounding success is a clear indication of how important the audiovisual industry is to our society -- culturally and economically.

Our Government is committed to supporting this industry in its efforts to reach larger audiences in Canada and abroad.

We recognize that international audiovisual co-productions play a big part in the growth of the Canadian audiovisual industry and offer opportunities to position Canada as a global player. Co-productions include works such as Splice (a Canada-France co-production), Les Doigts Croches (a Canada-Argentina-France co-production), The Tudors (an Ireland-Canada co-production), and of course Barney's Version which will be presented at TIFF later this week (a Canada-Italy co-production).

Co-productions tend to attract greater audiences. Those released in theatres had on average 30 per cent more box office revenues in Canada than domestic films.

Pooling creative, financial, and technical resources, co-productions yield considerable economic benefits for Canadians and attract foreign investment to projects that may not otherwise be created. This, in turn, generates important sources of employment.

In fact, treaty co-productions represent a significant amount of our economic activity. From 2000 to 2009, Canada participated in close to 800 treaty co productions with total production budgets of approximately $5.5 billion. This meant foreign investment of $2.8 billion. They also had higher budgets than pure domestic productions, when we compare $7 million for the average co-production with $1.6 million for domestic productions.

But nevertheless, during the same period, Canada's co-production activity declined by approximately 46 per cent. This is a trend our Government thinks should be reversed.

International co-productions promote Canadian culture. They promote our creators abroad. They encourage cultural diversity, and they also strengthen alliances with foreign countries.

Our Government is working to develop a co-production policy that responds to the needs of Canada's audiovisual industry and to the changing realities of the audiovisual environment.

Canadian filmmakers compete among the best in the world, and we are committed to helping them market their home-grown films on a global scale. In order to shine internationally, our filmmakers must be given the right tools and the right environment to succeed.

It is in this spirit that I'm pleased to announce today that the Government of Canada is launching co-production treaty negotiations with India.

Not only is India the world's largest film production centre, but the Indo-Canadian community has made a tremendous contribution to film in this country and globally. We need look no further than Deepa Mehta, one of our most critically renowned filmmakers. Her epic film Earth premiered at TIFF in 1998.

As well, Water premiered at TIFF in 2005 and was Canada's entry for the 2007 Academy Awards. Equally impressive is Richie Mehta's award-winning 2007 film, Amal.

In fact, Canada and India share a longstanding and strong relationship in the field of culture. Canada and India signed a cultural cooperation agreement at the G20 meeting in June. We are also currently collaborating with India at UNESCO in the context of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

A co-production agreement between our two countries would provide producers with increased opportunities to work together, access to foreign markets, and potential export opportunities for Canadian film and television productions. It also contributes to the promotion of Canadian culture both at home and abroad.

To this end, we are very pleased to be resuming negotiations with Indian authorities. This is the first step in our Government's commitment to co-production, which will position the Canadian audiovisual industry as a global leader.

Thank you.