Toronto Elevation Pictures Co-Chair Noah Segal on TIFF, making diverse films, and why he thinks people will always flock to the big screen despite the pandemic moment of the broadcast.

The big screen business is in a bleak state after 19 months of a global pandemic and the streaming revolution, but Elevation Pictures co-chair Noah Segal remains somewhat optimistic.

His Toronto-based film production and distribution company managed to have a bofo 2020, releasing 35 films, not far from the 40 theatrical releases they handle in normal years.

Ten of Elevation Pictures’ films were screened at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, including the indigenous thriller “Night Raiders.” And they’re working hard to film the sequel to Brandon Cronenberg’s “Possessor.”

Segal sat down (virtually) with the star to discuss securing film production during COVID-19, the unexpected successes of Elevation Pictures, and why he is still confident that theaters have a future:

What was the last movie you saw in theaters before the pandemic shut everything down?

That is a crazy question! I booked it because I think I did a Marvel movie and then I recently saw “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” It was the five-year problem in Marvel movies: I saw one, and then everyone stopped, and then I saw another Marvel movie.

I was at Disneyworld when the epidemic started, so I took the last plane out of America.

How was TIFF this year?

We had 10 movies on TIFF, which is not uncommon for Elevation: movies like “Spencer” and “Night Raiders” and “Charlotte.” Look, last year was brutal at TIFF. They did the best they could, but could do nothing: try to fill rooms or half houses. I think they did a really commendable job of trying to get it back and I think this is just a transitional year. It’s like going to a Blue Jays game: you see 15,000 people and you’re used to seeing 60,000.

We are in the midst of a change, and it is a positive change. It’s certainly a lot better now compared to what it was last year. But some of the magic is not quite there yet. We’re working towards it, all of us, and I think it was nice to see the whole industry pushing that forward.

What has it been like trying to produce movies during the pandemic?

Challenging I would say. Everything moves much slower and you have to be very careful. We finished a movie this summer called “Alice Darling” with Anna Kendrick and now we are in the middle of filming a movie in Croatia and Hungary, Brandon Cronenberg’s continuation of “Possessor” called “Infinity Pool”. So we are worried. Every day I receive the newspapers and I am glad that another day passed without anyone falling prey to COVID, because one thing is to film in Toronto and another thing is to film in Eastern Europe, where they have different rules and regulations.

But at the same time, it is interesting because it is more difficult to create content at the moment – the demand is extremely high because there is a huge appetite. Cronenberg’s film has already sold out worldwide in a pre-order. The only concern is insurance. It has been a challenge.

When we are going to make a movie, we have to get insurance that says if someone gets hit by a car, we can either pay through insurance or continue making the movie because time is money. Many insurance policies have created COVID-exempt policies, which obviously makes it very difficult. If someone gets COVID, they don’t pay. So the government stepped up and gave little policies to smaller movies, which was great and very well received. That movie we made in June with Anna Kendrick had that policy. It probably would have been a challenge if we didn’t have it.

That being said, most of the movies that audiences want are higher budget and I speak for all the producers in this country when I say that the government should not only extend that plan, but turn it into a broader insurance segment. . It would be great if they extended that because the government only backs the risk and I think the payouts were very marginal. I think most of the producers and directors of the game were very conscientious and very positive. Very few policies had to pay.

Why are you so optimistic about movie theaters, especially in the transition to streaming that was already beginning before the pandemic?

I think it’s pretty funny when people talk about it like that. I think it has an impact on the type of content that hits theaters. But look, before streaming existed, people weren’t dumb. They knew that a movie went to the cinema and then 100 days later it went to DVD and VOD and then 100 days later it went to pay TV. They knew, in three months, that what they were seeing in the theater was going to be at home in some way.

Now with the broadcast, sure, it’s a little earlier, but that doesn’t mean they can’t watch it at home. It is about everything. We know that a group of younger viewers tend to go to the movies and empty nests, families with young children. Unless it’s a family-centric movie like Paw Patrol. I keep thinking that date night is date night. When you are 19 years old, you want to go see a movie. It gives you 90 minutes to be with someone and not have to carry on a conversation. And I think as you get older, you want a place to hang out. Again, it is an excursion. I think people need that and want that, and that is why I have been and remain optimistic.

I am not naive in thinking that streaming will not change the business. I think there will be some changes. Certain theaters are closing, as are certain Starbucks locations, but I don’t think people are going to stop drinking coffee in coffee shops because of COVID. They are not all going to just make coffee at home.

Of the films you have produced or distributed during the pandemic, which ones have fared better than you expected?

Everyone asks the same question. People wonder if the public wants to see movies about the pandemic. We had a movie, “Songbird,” which was a futuristic thriller, but a pandemic thriller. And it was hugely successful on the video-on-demand platform when all theaters were closed. That impressed us a lot because we didn’t know how people would take it. Classically, when there is a war, say, the Gulf War, if you publish a movie about the war, it underperforms because people have had enough watching CNN. While it was very interesting to see that people really wanted to see “Songbird”. The numbers were fantastic.

On the flip side of things, we had an Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan movie called “Wild Mountain Time” which was really a cute little romance that we released over the Christmas period and again we were blown away by the interest. It was a beautiful, very escapist Irish rom-com and people clearly wanted to escape COVID. They wanted to see movie stars kissing, and we provided that for them. Then there were “The Father” and “Minari”, which were Oscar movies. We had no idea how they were going to perform without a theatrical setting, but coming to the Oscars, they did really well.

Why do you think “Singing bird“ Did you do well even though we are still living in a pandemic?

I think it was because it was a thriller. If it was a drama about a pandemic, I think people would have said ‘that’s what I’m experiencing, I don’t want to see it’. When you have an action thriller where the guy is being chased by bad guys who want to kill him because he’s immune to the pandemic and he just wants to save his girlfriend, they take a bit of that out of you. It’s what’s on everyone’s head about being a superhero.

It’s definitely this idea that ‘I can survive the pandemic’.

Exactly. I wouldn’t have bought a dozen movies about the pandemic during COVID, but having one like that actually worked. It was kind of nice because it really was the first great movie to have that theme. Michael Bay produced it, as far as it had scope. So it was kind of a funny thriller.

I wanted to move on to one of the movies that you are producing, “Night Raider.“ How do you try to approach filmmakers with diverse perspectives without going back to them for trauma porn?

We don’t want it to look like we’re indulging in it. Elevation is a Canadian company; our job is to tell stories you can’t find anywhere else. We have touched heartstrings before. We had “Hyena Road” which is about Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. Then we had “Indian Horse”, which clearly referred to residential schools and the painful trauma that many indigenous peoples in this country have faced. Basically, it was an autobiographical story. That moved Canadians, both Indigenous Canadians and Non-Indigenous Canadians, who realized that this is becoming a fiery issue in Canada. We find that both approaches are extremely successful, particularly “Indian Horse”. We realized that this is an underrepresented market. We wanted to see what is out there and we have worked hard to achieve that.

So we did “Blood Quantum” which was an indigenous movie, a zombie movie. Then Paul Barkin, who is not indigenous, worked with Danis Goulet to make “Night Raiders.” We loved it because it was somewhere in the middle. We had “Blood Quantum” which is an allegory for a zombie movie, and then we had “Indian Horse” which is the opposite. You can hold on to the genre, but you can also hold on to the actual storytelling.

We are constantly engaged in getting indigenous storytelling and any BIPOC storytelling, frankly, as well as white filmmakers that are commercial. We think all of those stories are very commercial in their own right.

However, how do you balance that? There are excellent stories from indigenous and black filmmakers and there is a problem in the film industry to look at these stories and believe that they will not sell.

There is definitely a political challenge right now where people say that the BIPOC filmmakers have not had enough of a presence in the market. They haven’t had a chance. And I think they’re right. Our job is to expand your horizons, which we are doing. And we also have to be accountable to our shareholders and we also have to show other things that are a direct commercial fee. How do we balance it? We just make sure we don’t ignore the other side.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Brennan doherty is a writer living in Toronto. Her work has been featured in the Toronto Star, VICE World News, TVO.org, and Maisonneuve. Follow him on Twitter: @Bren_Doherty