Thank you.
At the end of the day, in these extremely difficult times for our artists and artisans, I feel it is my duty to share my concern about a Telefilm Canada program, Talents en vue. It is a very well-intentioned program that, first, seeks to support a wide range of emerging filmmakers, producers, directors and screenwriters. Second, it seeks to accelerate their careers by giving them the opportunity to create their first feature film or web series.
One of the program's criteria is: “The average budget for feature film projects is between $125,000 and $250,000, but must not, as a general rule, exceed $250,000.” Frankly, making a feature film today with that sort of budget is problematic. The Union des artistes must express its concerns to Telefilm Canada about that particular criterion of the program.
With that cap, the artists and artisans inevitably end up financing the film projects of young directors. Without increasing the funding, the Crown corporation could, at a minimum, refrain from capping the total budgets of those productions.
That concludes our presentation. Thank you very much for listening to us. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask us.
Thank you, Ms. St-Onge.