Quote:
"One of the first films that the OFDC [Ontario Film Development Corporation] had invested in, made for a very modest budget of $350,000, the film [I've Heard the Mermaids Singing] was not only a critical success, it sold to 37 countries world wide, was picked up by Miramax for US distribution and went on to gross more than 5 million dollars, an unprecedented and never to be replicated feat. [...] While few other films in the next decade would match Mermaid's recoupment miracle or [Atom] Egoyan's cachet with international and national film critics, both directors would nonetheless be installed in the policy rhetoric of both the OFDC and Telefilm [Canada] as key exemplars of the viability and vision of the state funding system."
-- Brenda Longfellow

Source:
Longfellow, Brenda. "Surfing the Toronto New Wave: Policy, Paradigm Shifts and Post-Nationalism." In Self Portraits: The Cinemas of Canada since Telefilm, edited by André Loiselle and Tom McSorley. Ottawa: Canadian Film Institute, 2006. (pp. 180-181)