Successful independent films need imaginative, well-written scripts. Plot, incident and character development are essential if a producer isn't relying on high-end special effects to generate an audience. Yet it was only 20 years ago that a system was established to provide financial aid for scriptwriters to create new material for Canadian cinema.

That privately financed institution was initially called the Foundation to Underwrite New Drama for Pay Television (FUND). Created in 1986, it was the vision of one man, Harold Greenberg, then president and CEO of Astral Media, which owned pay-TV station First Choice. Astral was required to provide money towards domestic production as part of its licensing agreement with the CRTC, but it's clear that FUND was also very much a product of Greenberg's commitment to Canadian film. As a producer or exec producer himself, Greenberg's earlier credits include In Praise of Older Women and Porky's.

"The production industry was something that Harold looked at very carefully," comments André Bureau, then chair of the CRTC, who, ironically, today assumes that same post at Astral. "He came to me at the time to say he wanted to create a fund for scripts, because people investing in movies never [seemed to] have people write good ones. He said, 'That's where I want to help.'"

The $1 million granted in 1986 by First Choice - later branded as The Movie Network - was merely the beginning of an ongoing investment in Canadian media culture. That amount has grown over the years with the maturation of Astral and the overall Canadian broadcast and production industries.

To date, The Harold Greenberg Fund, as FUND was renamed upon its founder's passing in 1996, has spent $39.2 million on more than 2,000 English-language projects and assisted in the development of more than 1,600 scripts.

"We're proud of what we've accomplished in Harold's name," notes Ian Greenberg, Harold's brother and Astral cofounder and current president and CEO. "Not only were we the first broadcasters to set up a private film fund, but we are the only ones who support filmmaking at the earliest stages of its development."

The HGF has expanded as Astral's broadcast profit centers have grown. After Viewers Choice was added as a pay-per-view service, the Equity Investment Program began in 1990. Projects that the HGF assisted in the development process could later receive financial support prior to production.

"Too often projects are rushed into production because an investment will go away on a particular date," notes HGF president John Galway, who took over the fund last September after heading up Telefilm Canada's English-language TV sector.

"That's not how to make films," he continues. "If the producer can spend additional time, that's best."

Since then, the HGF has provided equity for a number of projects that have justified its participation and enjoyed healthy returns at the Canadian box office, including The Sweet Hereafter ($1.5 million in receipts), Men with Brooms (more than $4 million), Mambo Italiano (more than $5 million) and Water (more than $2 million).