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Canadian films may be masterfully conceived and presented, but they lack the kind of universal appeal that writer-producer-director Michael Sparaga says would create “boffo box office." Sparaga, the mind behind the punchy documentary Maple Flavour Films, has been bursting with movie lust since childhood, when he first began devouring everything cinematic, from afternoon matinees to Betamax.
As a graduate of the film program at York University, he was schooled in the nuts and bolts of filmmaking but had scant knowledge of the business side. To finance his first feature, Sidekick, he maxed his plastic and waited on tables. While making a DVD extra for that film, Sparaga quickly realized the material he had gathered during his cross-country promotional stint (funded by a grant from Telefilm) had a distinct theme worth exploring. Maple Flavour Films was born. It's a quick flick, just over 45 minutes in length, and follows Sparaga as he talks about the state of Canadian film with folks on the street and interviews key players from the industry.
“It was a very organic process,” he says of the sometimes insightful and often hilarious feedback he received. Chatting excitedly over the phone from his native Toronto, he's optimistic about the state of the industry, but concedes it has flaws on various levels.
"The public really wants to be engaged by Canadian film," he says, adding we're quick to name our big stars, but struggle to cite a homegrown film. "We're Canadian. We're too nice to say we don't like something," he says of our claimed support of an industry that comprises a mere one per cent of box office sales across the country.
Sparaga bolsters the street interviews with the musings of industry insiders like Michael Kennedy, executive vice president of film and marketing for Cineplex Odeon, and Joel Bakan, co-author of The Corporation. Surprisingly, Kennedy holds Canadian films in high regard and is eager to put quality works on his screens, but his task isn't an easy one. Getting bums in seats and queued up for popcorn and fountain drinks at the concessions can be tricky.
"I could put any Canadian movie on any bunch of screens,” he says in the doc, “but if nobody's coming, who's that helping? It's certainly not helping me."
Sparaga will be part of a panel discussion, moderated by Sue Bristow with distributor Robin Smith and fellow directors Ryan Mains and Grant Harvey, following the screening
