"Would you like a slice of irony with your protest pie?"
Last night I went to a Toronto Town Hall meeting about the recent funding cuts directed at the Canadian film and television industry. I posted about it a couple of days ago, but long story short...the Conservative government have cut $14.5 million from cultural grant programs. Since 2006 they have cut nearly $60 million in arts funding from the federal budget. The Canadian film industry is furious, obviously, and everyone from the National Film Board, the Documentary Filmmakers Association, the Canadian Writers Guild and unions representing behind-the-scenes industry crews, musicians and artists is ready to take some kind of action.
As part of the plan to draw attention to the problem, some members of the group coordinating the event I attended have planned a rally during the opening gala of the Toronto Film Festival. The gala opening will be attended by the Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty, and the group is using his visit to protest the rapid defunding of Canadian arts programs and the diversion of those funds to military spending and Canada's continued presence in Afghanistan. The slogan of the rally is, "Fund the Arts, Not War."
So basically a coalition of artists from the Canadian film and television industry is going to be staging a protest at the world premiere of Paul Gross' Passchendaele, which is a) the most expensive Canadian film ever made (and therefore probably the most reliant on government grants, loans and tax credits) b) the first Canadian film made about Canada's role in the Great War (um, not that it's glorifying war, necessarily, but...yeah) and c) the Canadian film that has the widest distribution push in our nation's history, and probably the one homegrown film most Canadians will ever see.
The ironies are pretty much endless, here.
I'm behind on comments and dS Match stuff, and I apologize. I have to do some frantic cleaning so meresy can sleep here tonight without catching THE PLAGUE, and then it's off to Toronto for the aforementioned Passchendaele screening and the opening of the Toronto Film Festival. Catch you later, chickadees!
As part of the plan to draw attention to the problem, some members of the group coordinating the event I attended have planned a rally during the opening gala of the Toronto Film Festival. The gala opening will be attended by the Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty, and the group is using his visit to protest the rapid defunding of Canadian arts programs and the diversion of those funds to military spending and Canada's continued presence in Afghanistan. The slogan of the rally is, "Fund the Arts, Not War."
So basically a coalition of artists from the Canadian film and television industry is going to be staging a protest at the world premiere of Paul Gross' Passchendaele, which is a) the most expensive Canadian film ever made (and therefore probably the most reliant on government grants, loans and tax credits) b) the first Canadian film made about Canada's role in the Great War (um, not that it's glorifying war, necessarily, but...yeah) and c) the Canadian film that has the widest distribution push in our nation's history, and probably the one homegrown film most Canadians will ever see.
The ironies are pretty much endless, here.
I'm behind on comments and dS Match stuff, and I apologize. I have to do some frantic cleaning so meresy can sleep here tonight without catching THE PLAGUE, and then it's off to Toronto for the aforementioned Passchendaele screening and the opening of the Toronto Film Festival. Catch you later, chickadees!