Film—reel time

In the film Atanarjuat, filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk looks at life in the Arctic barrens of the 16^th century North Baffin and portrays the great themes—love, jealousy and the struggle for power—so eloquently that he was awarded the prestigious Camera d’or for the best first feature of the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.

Also highly acclaimed is the film, Les invasions barbares, by filmmaker Denys Arcand, which tells the story of a dying man whose friends and family gather to share their stories and thoughts. The film received an award for best screenplay at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, four Jutra awards, three Césars and an Oscar in 2004 for best foreign film.

Canada's landscape is an attractive location, financially and visually, for film and video producers. Television audiences and moviegoers around the world, believing they are seeing New York or the French Alps, are often looking at the streets of Montréal or the Rockies.

Revenues hit a record high for film distributors and video wholesalers in Canada in the fiscal year 2001/02, reaching $3 billion, up 8% from the $2.8 billion mark reached in 2000/01. However, Canadian films and videos struggled in a domestic marketplace still dominated by foreign products.

Foreign productions accounted for over 91% of the $1.2 billion in total sales in the domestic market for films and videos, virtually unchanged from 90% in 2000/01. In the theatrical market (commercial cinemas and drive-ins), foreign movies accounted for over 98% of distributors' revenue, which totalled nearly $403 million in 2001/02, with Canadian movies accounting for slightly more than 2%.

After rising to 25% in 1999/00, the share of Canadian product in the conventional-TV market fell to 14% in 2001/02, down from 16% in 2000/01. Although the conventional and pay-TV markets were dominated by foreign productions, Canadian product in the pay-TV market continued to thrive with revenues totaling $110.5 million, although its share of the total market fell to 21% from 24% in 2000/01.

The bright light of the movie screen continued to attract increasing numbers of viewers. In 2000/01, Canadian attendance was almost 120 million, from 99 million in 1997/98. The prediction that video would kill the movies seems to have been untrue. However, the era of the drive-in is slowly dying. In 1975, there were 315 drive-in movie theatres across Canada; in 2000/01, there were only 67 left, although they did sell 1.7 million tickets.