In 2003, Michael Sparaga applied to Telefilm Canada for a screenwriting grant. He was turned down.

The end? Hardly. It was just the beginning.

"That was the best thing that could have happened," Sparaga says, speaking almost too quickly to draw breaths. "I could have gotten caught in the stream. This way, I was just going to make my movie — and that's it."

It may seem a little odd for a Canadian filmmaker — a perpetually cash-strapped lot — to be glad of a further lack of funds. But Sparaga, whose loquaciousness is matched only by his tenacity, isn't exactly the norm. And neither is the story of how his film, Sidekick, a proudly low-budget twist on the convention of the superhero movie, fought its way out of the evil clutches of obscurity and into the light.

Which means, of course, that Sparaga did manage to make it — he's touring coast to coast with the lone print of Sidekick literally tucked under his arm from now until May 1; he brings it home to Toronto next Saturday at the Royal Cinema — but that's hardly been, as he says, it.

A rough early cut of the film, in the fall of 2004, precipitated a curious offer. Sparaga had sent the cut to Focus Features, the production company behind Brokeback Mountain, in September of that year. Two months later, Focus called. They wanted to buy it. Not to release it, exactly. Rather, to remake it. Completely. Put your film in a drawer, Michael, they said. Pretend it didn't happen. We'll take it from here. Here's your cheque.

It didn't quite work out that way. Focus still holds the rights to remake it, but Sparaga negotiated down — yes, down — reducing his take by less than half, just so he could do exactly what he's doing now: Take Sidekick across the country, into theatres and in front of audiences, by any means possible.

"I walked away from the table. I couldn't give it up like that. I just couldn't," Sparaga says. "I'm not in this for the cash. I'd take a deal that was almost financially against me, just to have it in theatres. I want to tell stories. And I believe in this one."

Weighing in at a lean $35,000 — and no, there are no missing zeroes — Sidekick is, of all things, a low-fi super-flick in an era of multimillion-dollar, effects-driven hero blockbusters.

Or, to be more precise, Sidekick is a movie about a comic book-obsessed loner who uncovers a means to make his fantasies into reality. And as the title might suggest, no, he's not The Hero; the rest you'll have to see for yourself.

Sidekick is also the strangest of animals in Canada: the privately financed film. Most, if not all films in this country come across some kind of public money windfall at some point in their development, or they don't get made. But that wasn't going to stop Sparaga.

His main investor? Visa. "I had about $15,000 on my credit cards, and that was essentially all the money we had to do it," he said. "I started paying one credit card off with another. Then they raised my limits. By the end, I had about $35,000 in credit, so that ended up being the budget."

Riding a heavy debt, Sparaga started calling in favours. It proved to be one of his greatest talents: From old classmates at York to William F. White, who provided grip and gaffer work for free, to Pizza Pizza, which provided on-set nourishment, Sparaga became an expert at beating the bushes to see what would tumble out. He even managed to secure some C-list Hollywood talent — a minor Baldwin, no less: Daniel.
"I'll make 3,000 phone calls to get one `yes,'" Sparaga says. "But that one `yes' is saving us money."

His credit cards maxed, Sparaga held a fundraising screening last June; it was to raise money for colour correction, an essential process that restores light balance lost when shooting on video. Problem: He couldn't screen the film until it was colour-corrected. No colour correction, no fundraiser; no fundraiser, no colour correction.
Sparaga has learned to be convincing. He promised Technicolor he'd pay up after he'd raised the money. Miraculously, they relented. "Normally, they don't let anything off the property that hasn't been paid for," he said. "I got lucky."

Luckier still, the fundraiser covered costs — and then some. Out of nowhere, Sparaga managed to fill the Isabel Bader Theatre at the University of Toronto.

Rule 1 of the Sparaga school of independent film marketing: Know your audience: "It was all the comic book guys that were buying the tickets," he says. "I realized we have a captive audience of guys who don't do anything but hang out in comic book stores, and then, when they go home, they hang out on the web. It was perfect."

As it toured a handful of small festivals that fall, Sparaga got a taste of what was to come: Nerd-filled theatres, gratefully lapping up his bargain offering.

When he embarked on this tour, it wasn't hard to figure out where to focus his admittedly sparse promotional budget.

"We talked to owners and managers of comic book stores all across the country, to help get the word out," he said. "Telefilm asked if I had a publicist; I said I'm my own publicist. I'll call as many people as I need to, anywhere, to get the word out on this."
So far, so good. A pair of screenings at the Varsity last month, as part of the Canadian Filmmakers Festival, played to packed theatres. A website slicker than the film's modest provenance would suggest has helped steer Sparaga's chosen demographic theatreward. Any money he's garnered has gone right back into the film, namely, a small grant he managed to coax from Telefilm in the fall for "alternative distribution."

It was enough — just — to transfer Sidekick from video to 35-mm film, thereby making it playable at theatres coast to coast.

The rest is, by now, second nature: Sponsorship deals with Delta Hotels so Sparaga and his entourage could stay for a discount or free in most cities; and, of course, a mountain of credit card debt.

"We need the box office every day, literally, to live on, just to get from city to city," he says.

It's the kind of lean living to which Sparaga has become accustomed. Would he trade it for a big-dollar remake — and the commensurate payout — to sit quietly in the background, like Focus had wanted? Not a chance.

"There have been moments, like standing up in front of an audience at the Varsity, to huge applause, where you truly feel like this is your movie," he says.