Film: Doc: Canadian: Maple Flavour Films

The importance of distribution and marketing in the Canadian film industry.

The Canadian film industry and the American film industry share many similarities – namely that our audiences are composed of almost identical markets – and yet somehow we struggle to reach our viewers in terms of screen attendance and thus box office numbers.

Michael Sparaga’s Maple Flavour Films takes the challenged independent artist’s perspective on a road trip across Canada and into the streets in an attempt to uncover the public’s responses and rationalizations, while also providing insight into the inner workings that strategize to challenge this phenomenon.

To those of us who work within this industry, this trend is a blatantly obvious barrier that we are forced to work around. MPF brings forth a panel of industry professionals that shed light on the realities of distribution and marketing in Canada.

Surprisingly, the perspective from the streets is a lot less aware of this said struggle. Candid interviews with movie goers across Canada reveal that audiences are eager and willing to endorse Canadian film, but they don’t know how or where to access them, nor do they know how to recognize them as specifically Canadian. When asked to name off 1 or two acclaimed Canadian films and actors that aren’t working in the US, the failed responses surprised even the interviewees themselves, leading them to smack their heads and say things like: “That’s crazy, why wouldn’t I know something like that?”

We have yet to uncover a tactic that sets us apart from our financially endowed counterparts to the south – but what this documentary brings forth is that our audiences are in fact interested in indulging in Canadian film; they just don’t quite know how to recognize them or access them.