Hello. I am pleased to be here today.
I am the Government Film Commissioner and Chair of the Board. I am accompanied by Claude Joli-Coeur, the Assistant Commissioner.
We're here to discuss the future of television in Canada and the impact of the crisis of the television industry in Canada's local communities. For 70 years—we celebrated our 70th anniversary this year—the National Film Board has played a vital role in Canadian society as a public producer and distributor of audiovisual materials in the public interest. We are recognized for our leadership in the production of documentaries, animation, and digital media.
In the past six years the NFB has earned five Oscar nominations, two Oscars, Emmy nominations, and two best short film awards at Cannes. It has competed at Sundance, the Toronto Film Festival, and other major festivals around the world. This year, Hot Docs honoured the NFB with the kind of programming focus it reserves for national cinemas. In addition, the festival paid tribute to our great aboriginal filmmaker, Alanis Obomsawin, with a retrospective of her works and an outstanding achievement award. In October, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honoured the NFB with a tribute in Washington. Last month, Cannes awarded the NFB a gold medal in recognition of our outstanding services to world film and television.
We are, without a doubt, Canada's best known international cinematic brand, and this allows us to serve Canadians in all regions by ensuring a strong Canadian presence in a globalized, digitized universe. Interestingly, this international reputation is built on our commitment and connection to local and regional communities, which touches on the subject today.
Many of the activities we undertake are designed to occur in the realm of what we call market failures—that is, creating public goods with long-term social and economic benefits for local communities and for the Canadian public. It means undertaking activities such as technological innovation, but also developing emerging creators across the country, working with filmmakers from aboriginal, ethnocultural, and official-language minority communities, offering a media service to underserviced communities, and innovating new forms of expression where the market on its own cannot afford to take the risks. We provide a forum for creators to develop new forms of authentic and relevant audiovisual works that communicate diverse Canadian points of view at home and to the rest of the world. These are public goods with long-term social and economic benefits for local communities, for the audiovisual industry, and for the country.
I'd point out also that we play a crucial role in marking the major changes and events taking place in Canadian society and ensuring that they connect to all Canadians. We did so with the celebration of Quebec's 400th anniversary. We distributed, with the help of Heritage Canada, 26,000 box-sets to schools and public libraries across the country. This is phenomenally important in ensuring that regional voices are heard throughout Canada and are part of the fabric of our country. For example, we're currently in partnership with the Vancouver Olympic Committee to use new digital media to engage Canadians across the country, to have their voices heard, and to share with each other what they have to say.
We are not a broadcaster; however, we are part of the wave of the future. Today, in the midst of technological and economic upheaval, the NFB is applying its creative powers to the multi-platform digital environment. By exploring possibilities of new technologies, testing new business models, and ensuring distribution to remote and underserviced communities, we are providing Canadians with a range of possibilities.
The transformation from analog to digital formats is the basic technological change that is profoundly altering the audiovisual sector at all levels. It's affecting audiovisual conception, development, production, distribution, exhibition, and the nature of social engagement through media. The transition to digital formats is creating new exhibition platforms that are reshaping the environment and fragmenting audiences. This transition is having a profound impact on local broadcasting.
But it can be a positive impact, because it allows those local and regional voices to find their places in ways they may not have in the past. Digital technologies offer more flexibility in conception and development. They offer the possibility of fulfilling demands by racial, linguistic, and other minorities for highly specialized and personalized niche programming that responds to regional needs. The Film Board, as a national federal institution, is committed to such communities and to ensuring they talk to each other--that we share. We're committed to the younger generation of filmmakers and the younger audiences.
Many countries in the world today, particularly in Asia and Europe, are pushing ahead in accommodating and promoting digital technology by articulating a digital vision. Canada is starting to lag behind, which is something we need to be concerned about. It's also something the NFB feels we need to take some leadership on. So we are moving ahead in digital creation and distribution to show proof of concept in a range of ways. For example, we pioneered the development of one of Canada first e-cinema networks through a pilot project. Our project in New Brunswick, in L'Acadie, brought together five communities and gave them access to works that they would normally not have access to--a cinematic expression of their communities and the communities across Canada in French. This was a first and was remarkably appreciated. It has been now going for almost a year.
Access to our collection of audiovisual materials is essential for all Canadians, and a priority. In January we launched our national online screening room, which now offers a thousand titles from our 13,000-title collection. It's a treasure trove of local information and stories in both official languages, and with the click of a button viewers can connect to the pulse of Canadian life and creativity across the regions of the entire country.
We are also strengthening our role in the local educational market. Because we are a trusted provider of regional content and a valuable partner for Canadian teachers, the NFB is increasing its online offerings and reaching Canadian youth on the platforms of their choice. For example, in partnership with LearnAlberta.ca, the NFB offers over 100 films online to all schools in Alberta, much like the community screenings that still remain important to us and the communities we work with. Web broadcasting of our works and stories serves to bring Canadians together.
New media is attracting ever-increasing audiences, but local television programming continues to play an important part in the political, economic, and cultural life of our country. It delivers information and entertainment and provides an important contributing element to community sharing and building. Conventional broadcasting will remain important in the years ahead. In fact, we'll be releasing a film shortly that looks at the major impact a local radio station has in the small community of Fort McPherson in the Northwest Territories. It's directed by Dennis Allen, a filmmaker from Inuvik.
We don't produce local news ourselves and can't provide those broadcasting opportunities, but we try to fill the gaps that can't be filled elsewhere. I mentioned our participation in the 400th anniversary of Quebec City, where we did exactly that and made it available to all Canadians.
We are currently working on a multi-year major project on residential schools. It's a way of telling the stories, from regions across the country, behind the very moving apology delivered by the Prime Minister last summer.
We have regional productions in both English and French programming that comes from across the country. Sabrina' s Law is produced in the Prairie Centre and aired last year on Global Television. It tells a story that affects Canadians but comes from a particular place. The Big Drive is a short animation film by award-winning Anita Lebeau from Winnipeg. It tells a story that is profoundly anchored in the experience of growing up on the prairies. But I can assure you that this very particular and regional story will travel the world.
We have productions from Newfoundland, P.E.I., and across the country. Radiant City, a film by Albertan Gary Burns, which had a story that was very much set in Calgary, found audiences across Canada and around the world.
We do programs in the Yukon and Nunavut.
The National Film Board does them in French too. We have done a lot of French projects, not just in Quebec, but across the country, in Acadia, in the west and in the north. What we do is very important because we make films that would not otherwise be made.
I am going to wrap things up by saying that we are going through a period of significant change. We really need to take a comprehensive look at all of the issues.
We are doing our part. In many areas we're leading the way. But as an industry and in terms of public policy, we need to take a larger and longer view. We need to bring private and public sectors together in a partnership to craft a national digital strategy that will form the basis for the creative economies of the future.
We must ensure that the infrastructure needs are there and put in place advanced digital networks. We need training, and we need to evolve new business and financing models.
The challenges we are facing can provide us with tremendous opportunities to try new things and explore new frontiers. We have to embark on this adventure together and have a vision for the future.
We can take this challenge and turn it into unprecedented opportunity if we dare, if we're bold enough, and if we have the vision.
Merci.