TORONTO – A new three-year $7.5 million "entertainment and creative cluster partnerships fund was launched Friday by Culture Minister Caroline Di Cocco.
The fund is geared towards helping Ontario’s entertainment and creative industries grow and move into new markets by promoting new content development, innovative marketing and distribution, and skills training. The industries include film and television production, interactive digital media, music recording, commercial theatre, and magazine and book publishing, says the press release.
"The Government of Ontario recognizes that our entertainment and creative industries are major contributors to Ontario’s economic prosperity and quality of life," said Di Cocco in the release. "This fund will reinforce Ontario’s position as a contender in the high-growth – and high stakes – global entertainment marketplace."
Ontario’s entertainment and creative cluster contributes more than $6.7 billion to the provincial economy and generates over 36,000 jobs, says the release. The cluster includes fast-growing new media industries (e.g. digital special effects and interactive digital special effects and interactive productions like video and computer games) as well as artists, authors, musicians and filmmakers. Over the next two decades, job growth is expected to surpass most of Ontario’s other thriving employment sectors.
Ontario Media Development Corporation will co-administer the fund.
For more on who qualifies the fund, how it works and what it’s for, go to www.culture.gov.on.ca.
