Ms. Keeper.
Evidence of meeting #24 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fund.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #24 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fund.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Tina Keeper Liberal Churchill, MB
I'd like to thank you for your presentations.
I want to ask a question about your mandate. I want to ask about what differentiates you from the National Film Board in terms of your mandate.
4:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
The National Film Board, as you know, is a producer; we're a funder. We work with producers to try to help them develop business skills. The National Film Board will act as the producer. So they are mainly interested in working with directors in the private sector because they have their own producers who will look after getting all the distribution rights and getting the financing together so that the director can just focus on the creative side. So--
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Tina Keeper Liberal Churchill, MB
I'm sorry to interrupt. A lot of people don't understand the film or television industry and what is required of the different players within the production. So perhaps you could just clarify that a bit more in terms of fostering producers, I guess, and how critical that is to the industry.
4:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
The difference is as I've stated.
The other thing is that the National Film Board supports emerging filmmakers, but when they're talking about filmmakers, again, they're talking about directors. When we're talking about emerging talent, we're primarily talking about producers. So there is a difference.
If the film board enters into a co-production, they will, in most cases, exercise the rights of approving the script, the people who are involved. They will take the copyright. Now, we do not do that. The reason we do not do that is we are trying to help producers on their way so that they can have the copyright to exploit the rights, so they can derive some revenue. We want them to become business people and self-sustaining. If it's ever going to happen in this environment, I don't know. It's very difficult, as you know, for filmmakers, but that's what we're trying to promote. The film board wants to keep the rights themselves because they're a producer.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Tina Keeper Liberal Churchill, MB
So you're really fostering an independent film industry, rather than being the independent film producer.
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
Yes. We don't take any rights. We don't have approval on scripts. We don't do any of that.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Tina Keeper Liberal Churchill, MB
I'd like to ask you this. How is your budget broken down, or do you have a set breakdown in terms of what is in the different categories? So what is a documentary? What is a docudrama?
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
No, everything is just in one big pot. The only way we break it down, as you know, is linguistically and regionally on the English side.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Tina Keeper Liberal Churchill, MB
So those are two envelopes that you have, right, English and French? Is there an aboriginal envelope as well?
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
No. We don't have enough money to do aboriginal--
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Tina Keeper Liberal Churchill, MB
So you don't see it as necessary to have a particular portion of the existing money set aside for aboriginal production?
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
We see it as important. We also see having some money for cultural diversity or visible minority producers.
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
We collect statistics on it, but we don't have enough money to divide up--
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Tina Keeper Liberal Churchill, MB
You have to divide the money you do have, I guess, because of the official languages, right? It's the law that you have to distribute it, English and French.
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
That's correct.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Tina Keeper Liberal Churchill, MB
Because you're not legally bound to recognize diversity or the aboriginal population, you don't make it a policy.
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
No. But I can tell you that 9% of the projects we funded in 2006 were produced by aboriginal producers. Six projects were funded, and we received nine projects.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
I didn't bring the statistics on women. We do have statistics on women. I could certainly send them to you.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Tina Keeper Liberal Churchill, MB
Can I just ask about trends? Can I ask about whether there's been a change in, say, the last decade, in terms of what is being produced and what you're able to produce, and how that's being received in the domestic and international markets?
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
I'm sorry, did you say “trends”? Was that the word you used?
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Tina Keeper Liberal Churchill, MB
Yes. Is there a trend? Are you seeing a pattern emerge? We look to the U.S. a lot in terms of what we should be doing in Canada. It seems to be a theme that people want to set us up against the U.S. I believe we should be developing and fostering Canadian heritage. Are there challenges, especially over this last decade, where we've seen the television market, in particular, change so drastically?
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund
On subject matter, I wouldn't say there's been a change in trends. I would say there's been a change from documentaries to series.
Series are more profitable to produce because you can amortize the costs across all the costs, and doing a one-off is more difficult. It's easier for broadcasters to program a series as well.
One-offs are having great difficulty. If you're talking about le documentaire d'auteur or le cinéma d'auteur, I would say they're having even greater difficulty.
I don't know if I'm answering your question or not.