Producers fight for WWI epic's record budget

Rhombus Media producer Niv Fichman is a veteran in the trenches of complex international financing, but World War One epic Passchendaele is a battle that forced him into uncharted territory.

The $20-million Paul Gross starrer was financed entirely in Canada, making it the biggest-budget feature to be funded solely here, according to Telefilm Canada.

The unique financing model combines the usual suspects of film funding - including public money and distribution and broadcast partners - with some innovative strategies.

"When we initially went abroad to raise money in the U.S. and Europe, we were asked to tone down the Canadian-ness of it," says Fichman (Silk, The Red Violin). "I said screw that."

Instead of diluting the Canadian war story, Fichman began to fight.

"I fought to not water it down to get a minor presale from a U.S. studio," Fichman explains. "Instead, we had to go outside the box."

Fichman says that on any given film, $8 million is about the maximum that can be tapped from public sources (including tax credits, Telefilm and provincial programs) and distribution advances (Alliance Films, in this case). The Harold Greenberg Fund and a licence fee from The Movie Network also contributed to Passchendaele's hefty budget.

But that still left a whopping $12-million hole. So the producers got creative. Very creative.

In 2005, Fichman and Gross met with Alberta's then-Conservative Premier Ralph Klein, who had created a special legacy fund for Alberta's centennial. There were grants to be had for projects of cultural or historic significance to the province.

The producers convinced Klein that their movie should qualify for this special grant because it is based on the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele, fought by 50,000 Canadians - many of them from Alberta - in Ypres, Belgium.

In addition, the WWI tale is written and directed by Calgary-born Gross, who was inspired to make the film because his grandfather, also an Albertan, fought in the Passchendaele conflict, a horrific, muddy battle that ultimately saw the Canadian Corps triumph over the Imperial German Army.

Klein was so impressed that he awarded the movie a $4-million grant from the centennial fund (in addition to the $1.5-million film and TV tax credit the project had already been awarded through the Alberta Film Development Program).

The producers were on a roll. They then set up a limited partnership income fund that owns distribution rights to the movie. Using the flag-waving nationalism of the project as their sales pitch, they sold shares ($250,000 per unit) to private investors in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario, raising $6 million.

Still $2 million shy, the producers made another unique move and partnered with The Dominion Institute, a national charitable organization that promotes an appreciation of Canadian history.