Telefilm Canada has named Stephanie Azam as its new czar for English-language features, giving the former indie distributor the power to greenlight features though its $100-million Canada Feature Film Fund.

So it's fitting that the Ottawa native, previously at New York's Zeitgeist Films, "speaks" box office and has a real marketing background.

"I joined Zeitgeist when we were releasing [Oscar-winner] Nowhere in Africa," Azam told Playback Daily, shortly after she was tapped by Telefilm on Thursday night. "It was my first experience on a major release, and it made close to $6.5 million at the box office," in 2003.

Her time at Zeitgeist also gave her experience with U.S. launches of Canadian films such as Marc Achbar's The Corporation, a heavy-hitting doc that required target marketing, and Into Great Silence, a three-hour doc about monks that made nearly $800,000 at the box office. "That was all about a target-market niche," she notes.

She will make all final decisions on which English-language features get greenlit by the federal funder. However, she plans to continue the current system of working hand-in-hand with Telefilm's four regional directors in charge of anglo fare -- John Dippong in the west, Dan Lyon in Ontario and Nunavut; Gord Whittaker in the Atlantic region, and Mélanie Hartley for the English market in Quebec.

Projects "get developed at the regional level and then they come to us, and regions make recommendations as to how we should spend the national fund," Azam explained about the decision-making process, noting that executive director Wayne Clarkson will no longer "be involved in feature film decisions."

She is responsible for all English-language investments over $1.5 million in the Canada Feature Film Fund. The Toronto-based exec will report to Montreal-based director of financing Michel Pradier, who in turn reports to Vancouver-based COO Elizabeth Friesen, who reports to Clarkson.

Azam replaces Clarkson, who was doing double duty as film czar since 2006. The position was created for Michael Jenkinson, who was there "for a heartbeat," according to a Telefilm spokesperson.

Clarkson has "been working with her since she started, and their strengths complement each other, but he's the exec director -- he can't hold both posts," said the spokesperson.

Azam's new position is effective immediately. She's looking to greenlight pictures that have both commercial and cultural appeal -- films such as Paul Gross' Passchendaele, Sarah Polley's Away from Her and Trailer Park Boys 2 -- that are also in sync with the corporate mandate to up Canada's box office take on its own turf to 5%.

The $20-million Passchendaele "is super commercial and culturally relevant," Azam insists, "so we don't necessarily think you have to have one or the other. We're expecting good things from Passchendaele. I think that film could easily make $2 million [at the box office] and that would be considered a huge success."