MONTREAL — On the eve of International Women’s Day, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) announced Wednesday it continues to meet its gender-parity goals for both the number of productions directed by women and for production budgets allocated to women, four years after making its initial commitment.
According to its news release, the NFB has surpassed its goals for gender parity in two of four key creative functions, screenwriting (61%) and editing (55%), with net improvements in cinematography and music composition. The NFB expanded its gender-parity commitment to these creative roles in 2017. In 2016, the NFB made a formal commitment to ensure that by 2019, half of its productions would be directed by women and half of production spending would be allocated to projects directed by women.
Based on preliminary data as of March 1, 2020, for works in all phases of production during the fiscal year ending March 31, 2020, the NFB reported the following results for 2019-2020:
- For works directed by women:
- 46% of NFB works were directed by women (40% by men and 14% by mixed teams)
- 44% of NFB production budget was allocated to works created by women (42% for works by men and 14% for works by mixed teams)
- For women in key creative positions:
- 61% of NFB works were written by women (35% by men and 4% by mixed teams)
- 55% of NFB works were edited by women (41% by men and 4% by mixed teams)
- 22% of NFB works have cinematography by women (72% by men and 6% by mixed teams)
- 19% of NFB works have music scores composed by women (73% by men and 5% by mixed teams; 3% of the data was uncoded)
“I want to pay tribute to all the creative women from every background who bring their talent and vision to the NFB. The progress we’ve made to date is due to these women as well as to the dedication of our entire NFB team, at all levels, especially at our production studios. Knowing that there is still work to do, these latest results show what hard work and determination can achieve,” said Claude Joli-Coeur, government film commissioner and chairperson of the NFB, in the news release.
