Quebec grants an additional $ 2.5 million to cinemas

This amount will be managed by the Cultural Foundation for Business Development (SODEC), and cinemas will be able to capitalize on it by inviting projects. It brings total aid for Quebec cinemas to $ 3.9 million in 2021-2022, a boost from the cultural sector’s economic recovery plan.

Movie theaters are among the most to suffer since then [le début] The epidemic. Without government assistance, be it federal or provincial, almost nothing would be left.Says Mr. Bouchard, who also owns the Saint Eustache and Saint Jerome cinemas.

It doesn’t solve everything, but it does give us oxygen, because it’s not easy, especially since the last few weeks. The Quebec movie release helped us a lot, but there, Quebecers pulled out. And American films are just beginning to arrive. Therefore, we find ourselves in a programming trough.

The money pumped out by the government will be used to compensate for the significant drop in box office sales and keep theaters in trouble, while ensuring “greater predictability of the distribution of Quebec cinema,” one could read in one of the reports.

“We can’t afford to miss this money,” says Mr. Bouchard, recalling that the recent aid program (2020-2021) made it possible to award $ 16,000 per screen to theaters with 10 or fewer screens and $ 150,000 to cinemas. In theaters with more than 10 screens.

Quebec cinema to the rescue

In the absence of a steady stream of major American productions, as usual, theaters have relied heavily on Quebec cinema to continue the trajectory in this period of poverty.

The movie that made the difference is Goddess of Fire is flying [d’Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, inspiré du roman de Geneviève Pettersen]Mr. Bouchard confirms.

Last year, when we opened on July 1st, we worked with Jaws And the Back to the future. We found ourselves in a difficult situation. We were released on August 15th. Suspect number one [de Daniel Roby]And the My circus [de Myriam Bouchard]And there we saw a wonderful Quebec cinema venue and the residents responded wonderfully.

Our cinematography saved us.

With vaccination efforts going well and easing sanitary measures on the horizon, the future looks promising, especially with the return of US production (The Fast and the Furious 9) And the arrival of mainstream Quebec films, such as A Guide to the Perfect Family From Richard Trogy.

But movie theaters will never be guaranteed until movie-goers can overindulge in popcorn. Measures that will help us concretely are, in order, the opening of candy counters, which are an important part of our sales and that is part of the cinema experience, as well as reducing the physical distance from 2 meters to 1.5 meters.

Despite the adversities, Mr. Bouchard remains positive. There will come a point where I think we will not have enough screens to show all the movies, but we have to hold out until then.