Robin Cass
Producer and founding partner, Triptych Media

Toronto producer Robin Cass says he takes some proprietary pride in the story option arm of The Harold Greenberg Fund, as he is the one who pitched the idea to Astral Media. The initiative launched in 2001, and has benefited several Canadian producers, Cass among them.

Last year, Triptych was able to secure the rights to In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son's Journey to Understand His Father's Legacy by Ken Wiwa - the life story of the author's father, Nigerian anti-oil industry activist Ken Saro-Wiwa - which it plans to shoot under the title Half a Million Heroes next year. According to Cass, this wouldn't have been possible without the aid of the fund.

"Half a Million Heroes is a significant rights acquisition for us," says Cass. "It was a complex deal, and [the fund] made it possible for that project to continue. We were able to sign the deal just before for we left for Cannes this year, and we had those rights sewn up. It led to a bunch of meetings at Cannes that I think will lead to something really terrific."

Cass says the fund - in addition to helping the prodco at various stages on films including The Bay of Love and Sorrows and The Republic of Love - also made possible Triptych's rights acquisition of the novel A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright and the Canadian stage play High Life by Lee MacDougall.

"The hardest thing to do is raise first money, and, given the fact that we are an industry that is typically operated by production companies that are not capitalized, people are digging deep into their pockets to find money to secure rights, and it is money that is gambled," says Cass. "We all have to participate and stake ourselves on the things that we believe in and go to the wall for the projects we want to get made, but it is really great to go to the fund for assistance with that."

Michael Souther
Producer, Amaze Film + Televison

Michael Souther produced Michael McGowan's crowd-pleasing 2004 feature Saint Ralph with help from The Harold Greenberg Fund. The HGF has also helped other Amaze projects through various streams.

"The Harold Greenberg Fund has been an incredible supporter in what we all know is the most difficult time to move projects forward financially, and that's through the development process," says Souther. "On Saint Ralph, it supported us all the way - through development and then with equity investment in the film.

"The fund has been actively involved on other projects through development. We've accessed both the Family Film Program [for Finn on the Fly] as well as the Script Development Program, and it has helped us secure the rights to some properties so we can package them together with some writers, which we are in the process of doing right now [with 2004 ReLit Award winner Still Life with June by Darren Greer]. For a small company, that is important. The team over there understands what we're trying to do and is supportive at so many key points along the way."

Mark Musselman
Head of business and legal affairs, Serendipity Point Films

Mark Musselman says that although several features from Serendipity Point have received development funding from The Harold Greenberg Fund, its current production is a shining example of how the fund helps films reach the finish line.

Serendipity Point - which has benefited from HGF funding on features including Where the Truth Lies, The Statement, Ararat and Men with Brooms - acquired the rights to Anne Michaels' novel Fugitive Pieces in 1999, and has spent the last seven years in development before finally going into production in April with director Jeremy Podeswa.

"Throughout that long development period, The Harold Greenberg Fund has been there and supported us repeatedly," says Musselman, adding that HGF also has equity in Pieces.

He says that because of the nature of the Canadian film business, with filmmakers relying heavily on public sources for investment, producers generally have a difficult time nursing multiple productions at once.

"The fund plays a very important role in trying to assist producers in surviving the development process, to get them to a point where they can pull the trigger on the right project at the right time," he says.

Musselman adds that he appreciates the sensitivity HGF staffers show towards producers' deadlines.

"They make appropriate demands when required, but they have also shown themselves to be extremely flexible and realistic when it comes to understanding the practicalities of what happens when," says Musselman. "We have found them to be flexible, supportive and collaborative, while protecting their own mandates."

Nicholas Tabarrok
President, Darius Films

Nicholas Tabarrok of Toronto's Darius Films says his forthcoming feature Weirdsville, helmed by Allan Moyle, will have locked picture around late June. The project was bolstered with assistance from The Harold Greenberg Fund.

"[The fund] is absolutely an essential service. It has been a great supporter of Canadian film, and a major contributor to Darius' success over the years," says Tabarrok. "They had money in The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico and Weirdsville. With Weirdsville, especially, the money was needed. They have supported me in development for years."

Sudz Sutherland
Writer/director

Sudz Sutherland, the award-winning Toronto-based director of Love, Sex and Eating the Bones and CTV MOW Doomstown, recently received funding from The Harold Greenberg Fund's Script Development Program for his basketball feature The Way the Ball Bounces.

"The fund gives me time to not have to worry about paying bills and just work on a script," says Sutherland. "Also, if there is a story editor that I am working with, [my producer and I] can pay their fee to have somebody to bounce ideas off - someone who is actually looking intently at the script, as opposed to your fellow writers whom you may give it to for opinions. It is this person's job to look at the script and ask you questions - these questions lead to better drafts."