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Every aspiring Canadian filmmaker knows the multitude of hoops they have to jump through to get a thumbs-up for financing from Telefilm Canada.

But some probably don't know where the buck stops: that the woman sitting atop the decision-making heap for the English Canadian market is 35-year-old Stephanie Azam – a commerce grad and married mother of one who shot into this plum, but extremely daunting, job last fall.

In an interview at Telefilm's Toronto headquarters, Azam, who was appointed the new feature film executive for the English-language market last September, exudes a quiet confidence as she talks about her love of film – especially the movies made in this country. And she readily concedes Canadian filmmakers face huge box-office challenges on account of all the Hollywood product inundating Canadian screens.

But while she comes across as a calm, practically minded sort, make no mistake: Azam is hell-bent on shaking up English Canada's moribund film sector, which currently accounts for less than 1 per cent of total Canadian box office, excluding Quebec. (With La belle province in the picture, that figure is 2.3 per cent of overall gross).

“Before I green-light anything, I make sure we say, so who's our audience? Who is actually going to see this film? It may be a wonderful story, but if it doesn't attract bums to the seats, then we've only done half our job. And that's not good enough.

“My No. 1 priority is making – or surpassing – our box-office targets,” which she has set at 1.5 to 2 per cent of box office in 18 months in English Canada.

“Telefilm has been criticized by some who say we are making commercial stuff now. Well, what does commercial mean?” she asks. “For me, commercial means we are going to find an audience for our films. That people are going to want to pay to see our movies. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's very healthy for our industry to be going for that. It doesn't mean we won't make auteur-driven films. One does not exclude the other. I just believe we can make a Juno or a Little Miss Sunshine.”

Azam is the point person at Telefilm for English-language filmmakers, and is responsible for all investments over $1.5-million in the Canada Feature Film Fund. Her total annual budget is $15.1-million.

Working closely with her regional offices, she spends her days reading scripts, talking to people in the industry about upcoming ventures, meeting with creative teams about their projects and, most significantly, keeping an eye out for that one special team, that one special script.

By the close of Telefilm's current fiscal year, which ends March 31, Azam and her regional teams expect that English-Canadian films will ring in $9.5-million in domestic ticket sales. So far, that figure sits at about $8-million ($4.3-million of it generated by Paul Gross's Passchendaele).

But she is confident they will reach the goal with the imminent release of several promising features, including Atom Egoyan's Adoration (nominated for a Palme d'or last year at Cannes, and winner of the Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival) and Kari Skogland's Fifty Dead Men Walking (which premiered at TIFF in 2008 to much critical praise).

Prior to joining Telefilm in January, 2008, Azam worked for five years at New York's auteur-driven Zeitgeist Films (distributor of The Corporation and the Academy Award-nominated Nowhere in Africa). “Working at Zeitgeist was very similar to what we're doing here in the Canadian film business,” asserts the Ottawa-born business grad, who also spent four years at Canada's Business Development Bank. “We're up against all the studio films so, in a sense, all our films are indie films.”

That experience made her the top candidate for her first job at the federal funding agency in January, 2008, as national marketing specialist for the English-language market. The first thing she did was to invite various Canadian distributors and exhibitors out for lunch, primarily to ensure the various factions would start working more co-operatively than they have in the past.

“Distributors are really our clients because they receive public money from Telefilm to release our films,” Azam explains. “I was the relationship person there. And I think we got to a level where I managed to make an impact with them.”

Indeed, Alliance Films' Mark Slone calls Azam a breath of fresh air, adding that “the first thing she expressed to me was her desire to end a history of adversarial relationships between distributors and Telefilm.

“Telefilm's goal is not a return on investment, but achievement on gross box office. She wants us all to work together to figure out a way to build a film industry in Canada that isn't resting on the shoulders of a few filmmakers who choose to stay here,” Slone adds. “Stephanie comes from a very realistic position and a marketplace-driven position. She's not a bureaucrat. She's someone who had to fight in the trenches of New York.”

In 2006, Telefilm executive director Wayne Clarkson appointed his first so-called English-Canadian film czar (Azam's predecessor), a Los Angeles studio executive named Michael Jenkinson, who was introduced to Canada's film industry at a splashy event. But shortly after accepting the position, Jenkinson changed his mind, leaving Clarkson red-faced as well as in the unenviable position of having to do his own job as well as the feature film executive post.

He chose Azam for her professional background, particularly her marketing/distribution savvy. “Our primary objective is more Canadians seeing more Canadian films. That's the fundamental principle that will drive Stephanie. It's not something that she will change easily – or overnight – but I promise you, you will begin to see her influence next fall for sure.”

“I want to find the quirky comedies, the moving Canadian stories, the little film that could,” Azam says. “It's not easy – and those films don't come around all the time – but I think we can do more of those.

“We've told them in the past. And I know that we can tell more of them. In fact, those are the kinds of films that have opened the door, in terms of audiences. More than ever, those are the kinds of films audiences want. And we have the talent – including a whole new creative generation – to pull this off.”