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Renowned Oscar-winning director Ang Lee has joined the growing chorus of artistic voices strongly opposed to Bill C-10, the government's pending legislation that will deny tax credits to films and videos deemed offensive to the public.

“People should be free to say anything,” said Lee, when asked about the controversial bill during a question-and-answer session on the weekend with young Vancouver filmmakers.

He noted that he has never been censored, even when “I was making a film about gay cowboys in Calgary”, referring to his best known movie Brokeback Mountain that garnered the Taiwan-born director an Oscar.

Not even Chinese authorities censored him during filming in the Communist-ruled country for his most recent film, Lust, Caution, Lee added.

He said financially-assisted films should not be treated as propaganda “or as a salesman for the tourist industry. I think that's just too low. They (the government) should know better than that.”

Afterwards, as youthful film-makers gathered around him, Lee urged them to “make a noise, whatever” to stop Bill C-10. “It's almost like censorship.”

Lee, who also directed such celebrated films as Sense and Sensibility and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is the highest-profile opponent so far to speak out against the bill, currently in hearings before a committee of the Senate.

Critics of the bill welcomed Ang Lee's comments as a boost to their efforts. “He's dead on,” said Toronto-based author Susan Swan yesterday upon hearing the news. “Ang Lee has done us a great favour.”

Swan is the chair of The Writers' Union of Canada and travelled to Ottawa on Thursday to brief the senate committee on the union's opposition to the bill. Union members such as Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient) and Barbara Gowdy (Kissed) are watching the proceedings with a keen eye because it will affect whether their books are made into films, she said.

Swan said Canadians may not realize the chill Bill C-10 could have on an already challenging industry for those trying to get films made. It took until 2001 to make Lost and Delirious, the film version of her 1993 book The Wives of Bath, starring Piper Perabo, Mischa Barton and Jessica Paré.

“It's very difficult to make a film period. And it's very difficult to make a film in Canada.”

Brian Anthony, the national executive director and CEO of the Directors Guild of Canada said yesterday that having an international directing star weigh in on the issue was a reminder to both critics and proponents of the bill that the issue isn't just of concern to the Canadian industry, “and no one else is watching.

“It's nice to have this voice of concern from outside the country,” he said.

Documentary filmmaker and constitutional lawyer Joel Bakan (The Corporation) agreed, saying “It helps to have people from the industry speak out, whether it's Ang Lee or Wendy Crewson.”

Still, Bakan says there's always the risk that people who are proponents of the bill will say all the critics are just self-interested. “What's really crucial is not just that Ang Lee speaks out but also that people who aren't necessarily part of the film industry understand how important these values are in terms of the production of culture in the country and get stirred up about it.”

Lee agreed to talk with local filmmakers in the midst of a private visit to the city at the urging of Vancouver city councillor B.C. Lee, who became friends with the director when both were film students back in Taiwan.

Lee captivated his audience with his friendly, unassuming demeanour.

His next movie, he disclosed, is “a comedy about the sixties,” but he would also love to make a film one day in Vancouver.

“I think this is the most beautiful city in the world …. I hope it's a hockey movie. I want to make a movie where Canadians win, not always Americans,” said Lee, who became a fan of the Calgary Flames during the filming of Brokeback Mountain.