Under one Umbrella

The blessing and curse of filmmaking in Canada is state funding. Raincoast Storylines, a British Columbia-based prodco, experienced this dichotomy firsthand with Captured Rain, a story about American rights to Canadian water. Public money gave the project life, after a successful pitch to the CBC's 'Witness' strand, and then very nearly killed it. 'Witness' senior producer Hilary Armstrong explains: 'The Telefilm Canada rules changed, which meant we had to put more money into each project to get them through the funding agencies, which in turn meant we could only extend money to six projects instead of ten.' According to Armstrong, Captured Rain was one of the projects at risk of falling through the cracks.