TORONTO – The Banff World Media Festival has unveiled a new national mentorship and market access program that will assist 100 emerging and established independent Canadian creators in attending the confab in June.
Known as the Banff Diversity Of Voices Initiative, the program will have a specific focus on Indigenous, Francophone and female industry professionals. The primary goal of the program is to provide participants with the information and relationships to be able to navigate the global content market and ultimately get their projects produced and sold as a direct result of the program.
The initiative will provide full registration access to the festival, a special market introduction curriculum, and access to networking opportunities with key industry buyers. In addition, a sub-group of 25 of the program applicants will be selected to take part in the Diversity of Voices Pitch Program where they will receive personalized advice from industry mentors and take pitch meetings with international buyers at Banff in addition to receiving a stipend to defray travel costs.
The program is open to creative producers with projects spanning all genres, including scripted, unscripted, documentary, as well as kids and family. Submissions are open on the festival website until April 27 and the winners will be announced on May 11, 2018.
“We believe that supporting Canadian cultural and gender diversity goals is vital to sustaining a strong domestic content industry,” said Banff World Media Festival executive director Jenn Kuzmyk, in the news release. “While good programs exist to nurture under-represented creators, this is the first of this magnitude to address the important “last-mile” challenge of commercialization. The Diversity of Voices Initiative will not just benefit its participants, but the Canadian industry as a whole for years, and possibly decades, to come.”
Banff is launching the program along with supporting partners including the Canada Media Fund – Fonds des médias du Canada (CMF/FMC), the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC), and Canada’s Indigenous Screen Office.
The 39th annual Banff World Media Festival will take place June 10 – 13, 2018 at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, AB.
