Kingston Film Office Seeks Municipal Support for Provincial Fund Creation

Jeff Green | Jan 26, 2022

When Alex Jansen studied film at Queen's years ago, he fell in love with Kingston. At the time there was no film industry in the City, and he did his best to support local film-making at that time. He was part of the start-up of the  Screening Room in town, which shows independent and local films, and founded the Kingston Film Festival.

Seeking to further his career, he had to leave Kingston and moved to Vancouver, and eventually Toronto. He worked in various roles in the industry, both in production and distribution. Along the way he developed a sense of what it takes to build and sustain a film industry in a city and surrounding region.

Three years ago, he returned to Kingston to set up a film office, within the structure of the Kingston Tourist Association. The Tourist Association and the film office receive funding from various sources, with the City of Kingston being a major contributor.

Since that time, the filming profile of the city has grown by leaps and bounds. Iconic locations like the Market Square, Kingston Penitentiary, and Fort Henry pop up on tv screens across Canada, and internationally, in historical and prison dramas. In 2021, filming for Murdoch Mysteries, Code 8- Part 2, the Mayor of Kingston, and other major productions, a total of $5 million in direct spending, took place in Kingston.

While COVID has resulted in a decrease in local production, a notable exception was the filming of Verona, last summer, in and around the hamlet of Verona. The Kingston Film Office was integral to that production, providing logistical support, helping with accommodations, and as was noted by the film-makers at the time, substantial help dealing with COVID protocols and establishing a safe bubble in order to make a movie.

The film office is striking out on its own now, becoming established as a not-for-profit corporation and seeking to establish Kingston as a production centre in its own right, which would bring much more activity to Frontenac County.

“The major productions have historically been based in Toronto, using Kingston as a satellite location at places like Market Square and Kingston Pen. As we move forward, the Kingston Film Office is working to help develop all of the skills in the local workforce to encourage production companies to establish their base here in Kingston, he said in an interview with the News. Once that happens, those companies will look to Frontenac County for satellite locations.”

One of the activities of the film office is to compile an inventory of locations in Frontenac County that are suitable for different types of projects.

Jansen made a presentation to North Frontenac Council at their meeting in mid-January about how the work of the office could extend opportunities for filming to take place at various locations in Frontenac County all the way up to North Frontenac and Bon Echo Park.

Filming was planned for Bon Echo Park for 2020, but was cancelled because of COVID.

The model for a film industry with a regional reach is the Northern Ontario industry.

Because Northern Ontario lagged behind the Ontario average for employment growth, it became eligible for provincial funding to establish the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation. The Film and Television stream of the NOHFC provides for financial incentives for Canadian based production companies to film in Northern Ontario.

“Northern Ontario is now home to a $100 million film industry, the third largest in Canada behind Toronto and Vancouver,” Jansen told North Frontenac Council.

Jansen said that Southeastern Ontario, taken as a whole, lags behind the rest of Ontario in employment growth.

He has been working with Ontario Regional Tourism Organisation (RTO) 9 on a proposal to set up a similar programs NOHFC in Eastern Ontario

“Southwestern Ontario has a 10.2% growth rate according to Ontario government tracking, and Southeastern Ontario is at -0.9%,” said Jansen. “This factor plays into a proposal for the establishment of a $25 million fund, the Southeastern Ontario Production Accelerator Fund (SEOPAF) that the Kingston Film Office and RTO-9 are hoping will be included in the 2022 Ontario budget.”

They already have the support from all 12 Southeastern Ontario MPPs, and the presentation to North Frontenac Council included a request for a letter of support to Ontario Minister of Economic Development Vic Fedeli.

Council said they would arrange for a letter of support, and Mayor Higgins said that he has a meeting scheduled with the Minister, on another matter, and would be willing to bring up the value of the SEOPAF project to the region at that time.

For Kingston Film Office, if the SEOPAF proposal is successful, it would help to speed up the development of the film industry, but with or without it the office is working on many initiatives, from skills development in local high schools, marketing, supporting projects as they come forward, and more.

“It is all about building a film industry that will eventually lead to the development of home-grown projects in the region,” he said, “and I see Frontenac County as a natural extension of that, in terms of locations for filming and much more.”