Heartbreak Hotel (Banff Television Festival)

June 24, 2000
Source: Toronto Star
Original story - link verified on August 19, 2000
By Antonia Zerbisias

The Banff Television Festival is both a mecca and a market, the birthplace of much of what Canada sees on screen, including last year's Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows, this year's Dogs With Jobs and CTV's legal drama for next year, The Associates. But behind the glitz is a not so glamourous picture. After seven years of covering this bruising, boozing week, I see it as Canadian TV's red-light district, a high-altitude bordello where cash-poor filmmakers rub up against network johns. Sometimes, they score - a sale to TLC or Discovery, a co-production deal, a commitment from a funding agency. But, more often, they go home, stripped of their dignity, hungover and empty-handed, yet determined to suck up to the money next year. Which is why, every June, the landmark Banff Springs becomes Heartbreak Hotel. When you come down to it, Banff represents everything that's right about the TV biz - and everything that's wrong.

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