OTTAWA (The Hollywood Reporter) — Serge Losique, the embattled founder and president of the Montreal World Film Festival, has launched a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the rival New Montreal Film Festival and its operator, L’Equipe Spectra.
In court papers filed the week of Feb. 21 with the Quebec Superior Court and released to the public Feb. 23, Losique requested CAN$2 million ($1.7 million) in damages and for L’Equipe Spectra to be barred from using the name New Montreal Film Festival in its publicity, documentation and correspondence.
The lawsuit follows the indication in December that two key film funding agencies, Telefilm Canada and Societe de developpement des enterprises culturelles, would divert key taxpayer financing from Losique’s film festival to L’Equipe Spectra’s new event, which launches in October.