A duo of Victoria-based film enthusiasts have launched their own film distribution company to help independent films receive theatrical showings within BC.
The new company, Destroyed Distribution, is the brainchild of Nick Workman and JP Meldrum, who also run Destroyed Cinema + Music, as well as Destroyed Secret Cinema.
All of their endeavours have film at their heart—seeking to share underground shoe-string budget films with a wider audience here in Victoria.
Meldrum and Workman say that as they became increasingly involved in independent film through running these events, they discovered massive gaps in how BC regulates the film industry.
Basically, for a film to have a showing in theatres, it must be rated by a government run organization, Consumer Protection BC (CPBC).
In most other provinces and territories in Canada, governments trust the studio or filmmaker to assign a rating that makes sense for a film, dictating at what minimum age it would be appropriate to view.
However, in BC, the CPBC must rate the film which comes at a massive cost, especially for low-budget filmmakers.
“As a filmmaker myself, I have dealt with trying to distribute my own film, learning about and coming across some of these barriers of the Consumer Protection BC, and I also worked in a movie theatre for a while,” Meldrum told Victoria Buzz.
“These things really slowed down the process and were honestly a huge obstacle for other people to get their films out there.”
“Theatres are game to play this kind of stuff, but they are pigeonholed by Consumer Protection BC,” added Workman.
The ratings cost $2.50 per minute of the entirety of the film, which can become incredibly expensive for an independent filmmaker to pay if they don’t have a studio attached to foot the bill.
Another barrier filmmakers or small-scale distributors face in BC is that if a film were to be played at the same time at two different theatres, the CPBC requires a “copy fee” of around half the cost of the initial rating.
Because films are distributed as digital files, Workman and Meldrum are baffled that this copy fee is still being required, as it deters independent Canadian cinema while causing no hindrance to larger American studios.
“You’ve already paid for your first copy to show in Victoria, but if you want to show it in Vancouver at the same time, you have to buy an additional copy of the film you just got rated in order to show that,” explained Workman.
“So you’re paying twice in order to show it at the same time. But for example, if you were to show the film at 7 p.m. in Victoria and 9 p.m. in Vancouver, you don’t have to pay.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” added Meldrum Workman.
For an 80 minute film, to get a rating would cost $200 just for the rating, when in most provinces there is no fee for rating. Additionally, if the film were to show in two theatres at the same time, the CPBC would charge an additional $108.
“It’s just a way for the Province to make a lot of money off of filmmakers,” concluded Workman.
For their first endeavour, Destroyed Distribution is putting on a few showings of The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man by Toronto filmmaker Braden Sitter Sr.
The film is based on a true story, although largely fictionalized, and is about a paranoid young man who launches a bizarre crime spree against the citizens of Toronto.
“It’s about a guy who is unwell, and he took his rage against society out by filling up buckets of urine and feces and throwing them on people, in the area of U of T” said Meldrum.
“It can be gruesome at times, but that’s not what the entire movie is about.”
Workman added that he had been asked if the film is more or less grotesque than the scene from the film Triangle of Sadness in which the toilets on a luxury yacht overflow, and he said it is less-so.
The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man has garnered a cult following across Canada since its release, but has yet to be shown in BC, because it is simply too expensive to take on the costs and show the film.
Destroyed Cinema spent around $871 for distributing this film across two showings, and hope that they will be able to make enough to take on another indie film and bring it to BC theatres, or put on a wider theatrical release of The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man.
The Destroyed duo are showing The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man on Friday, October 17th at 7:30 p.m. at the Roxy Theatre on Quadra Street, and are also holding a showing in Vancouver at the Rio Theatre on Monday, October 13th at 9:15 p.m.
For more information on more showings by the Destroyed duo, be it a proper film release, an event that pairs an underground film with live music or a secret showing of a popular B-film, follow them on Instagram.
Destroyed Distribution Presents: ‘The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man’
- Where: The Roxy Theatre, 2657 Quadra Street
- When: Friday, October 17th, at 7:30 p.m.
- Tickets: Available online
