Telefilm's Clarkson endures rocky road

Exec director admits running co. tougher than expected

By BRENDAN KELLY

Clarkson

MONTREAL -- Telefilm Canada executive director Wayne Clarkson is the first to admit that things haven't always gone smoothly in his two years in the top job at the Canuck funding agency.

"The decisions made out of this institution don't make everyone happy all the time," Clarkson tells Variety.

Within days of his appointment in November 2004, he unhappily found himself dragged into a bitter fight. Months prior to his arrival, Telefilm had cut its financing of Serge Losique's Montreal World Film Festival and initiated plans to start a different Montreal film fest. After he took the Telefilm job, Clarkson's refusal to take sides in the feud only ignited more controversy.

Clarkson also has experienced a rocky ride in his battle to try to rejuvenate the moribund English-Canadian film scene. A year ago, he announced with much fanfare that he was revamping the way English-Canadian films were to be funded and, at the same time, he named Los Angeles-based industry veteran Michael Jenkinson to the newly created post of film czar for English-Canada. But the week Jenkinson was scheduled to start, Telefilm sheepishly announced that he would not be joining the agency after all. Clarkson then said he was stepping into the post himself, in addition to his functions as executive director.

Clarkson conceded that his job running Telefilm has been tougher than he expected.

"Do I like it? Yeah," Clarkson offers. "I often get asked, 'Are you having fun?' I say, 'Define fun.' I've run marathons and I like the pain. It keeps you honest. And I look forward to running into Michael Jenkinson and saying to him that he missed a great opportunity. Being feature-film executive is not without its difficulties, but over the last 10 months it's been great, triggering and supporting Canadian films and being able to direct dollars to talent. You can't get a better rush than that."

Clarkson in fact has been getting a rush out of nurturing and promoting Canadian film for three decades. After running the Toronto Film Fest (then called the Festival of Festivals) in the late '70s, Clarkson became CEO of the brand-new Ontario Film Development Corp. in 1986.

During his tenure there, the Ontario film scene boomed, with his agency backing the early work of such filmmakers as Atom Egoyan and Patricia Rozema.

He then made the move to Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Center, one of the country's key film training schools, where he served as executive director.

Telefilm manages C$390 million ($331 million) in funding for films, TV productions and new-media works. Given Clarkson's past in the feature-film sector, it's not surprising that the challenge of trying to solve the riddle that is English-Canadian film is something near and dear to his heart.

"The biggest thing is to help market the films better, and that means putting dollars in," Clarkson says. "I reflect back on the films that have done well in the past year in the English market, like 'Bon Cop, Bad Cop' and 'Trailer Park Boys.' They are good movies that were marketed well by the distributors and exhibitors, and they made everybody some money.

"We have to increase the number of films, increase the commercial quality of those films and market them better. And that costs money. At what price victory? I think there's a lot of money out there, domestically and internationally. Independent producers are looking at ways to set up private-sector funds that lever public dollars, and that's a very good option."