Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today.
I'm a feature film producer and television producer who lives and breathes a number of things that Peter has just talked through. Our company is called Brightlight Pictures. We've been actively producing in the industry for approximately 15 years. We're based in Vancouver, and we've been fortunate to shoot movies all around the world. We've shot movies all across Canada, through the United States, and pretty much on every continent.
Recently, we produced a movie called The Interview for Sony, and a Canadian content picture called The 9th Life Of Louis Drax, which we financed as a Canada-U.K. treaty co-production. That picture we packaged off relationships that we picked up off the various service movies that we produced over the years. We were fortunate to cast Jamie Dornan, the star of Fifty Shades of Grey, in it. So hopefully, this is a Canadian content movie that will gain a fair bit of critical success and hopefully financial success when we complete it in the next few months.
I produced a movie many years ago called 50/50. That was a service movie which Lionsgate and Summit shot in Vancouver. It was a small comedy about cancer, and starred Seth Rogen, and it was produced by Seth Rogen. The relationships we built on that movie and various different service movies over the years often lead to relationships that we can then translate into ownership and packaging opportunities in Hollywood. Much of the Vancouver industry, as Peter suggested, is based and driven from Los Angeles, so we are a company that mixes service productions, like 50/50, with content movies we've done, like White Noise, Gunless, a Telefilm-financed movie, or The 9th Life Of Louis Drax. Our company works in a very wide range of productions, from service projects through wholly-owned television and film, and through treaty co-productions where we own a percentage anywhere from 20% to 80% of the production.
We tend to leverage wherever we can our relationships with Hollywood to facilitate creating something that is a watchable piece, but also something that we can sell internationally. We've been mildly successful doing that thus far, so it works, and it has been working for us. We utilize Canadian elements within the industry, like the Toronto International Film Festival, which is probably the most important film festival in North America, to sell our films, to package our films, and showcase our films. We've had the opening gala, we've had the closing gala, we've had numerous films in different positions throughout the festival, so ongoing, supportive ancillary elements within the industry like TIFF are huge for us.
With CAVCO, the Canadian audio-visual certification office, and the point system that currently exists, there's something we've been discussing at least within the various different groups in the west. We're looking at potentially reopening the point system and how things work here, and potentially loosening that up to allow us to bring elements that bring financing. As much as we have a very strong and vibrant Canadian industry, it is around the world driven by the United States. I have produced German-French films that have come to Vancouver to “shoot an American movie”, so around the world, people come to Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Winnipeg to shoot movies that appear Hollywood-driven. The reality of the industry is that stars, actors, scripts, directors, all ultimately drive the financing of our industry and how able we are then to monetize that in the future.
I have made a number of Canadian films over the years that are seen by our audiences, but get very limited viewership outside Canada. That is one thing we would want to look at. Peter has alluded to some of the other elements, such as the ability to not have to finance our tax credits in advance. Those are things that would help, that are small-business points that do save money and allow us to decrease what we pay the banks.
I think that's what I have to say at this point.