BANFF – The federal government will help fund a new initiative designed to boost the number of women-owned and women-led businesses within the screen-based industries.
Announced on the opening day of the Banff World Media Fest, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Halifax MP Andy Fillmore said that almost $2 million will be directed to the Banff Television Festival Foundation for the Banff Accelerator for Women in the Business of Media.
According to the announcement, the investment will help at least 50 participants to grow their business, support 16 participants in starting a business, and result in 200…
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BANFF – Now celebrating its 40th year, the Banff World Media Festival (BWMF) has grown to become one of the world’s premier conferences and marketplace for leading edge content producers, media executives, and digital entrepreneurs.
More than 1,500 delegates and attendees from more than 20 countries gather in the jaw dropping movie-set vistas of Banff, Alberta to continue the tradition of playing an integral role developing Canada’s (and the world’s) screen industries… all the while contributing to exports and growing associated sectors such as music and independent production.
Billions of dollars worth of business deals have been started and/or closed here…
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OTTAWA – Speaking before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in Ottawa, CBC President and CEO Catherine Tait said public and private broadcasters in Canada are seeing their territory invaded by multinational foreign giants that have disrupted the very nature of the country’s media landscape.
“We know that our industry is facing real challenges,” Tait said during the meeting where the committee is studying the mandate of CBC/Radio-Canada as it relates to the Broadcasting Act. “We want to work with Canadian partners, both public and private because today our competition is not with each other. Our competition is Google, Facebook,…
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HALIFAX – The inaugural recipients of Canada’s new export funding program were unveiled Wednesday in Halifax by Andy Fillmore, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism and Halifax MP.
The Creative Export Canada program, launched last June by then Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly, provides companies and organizations that are ready to export and work in a creative industry, or in support of one, with funding to make it easier for buyers and audiences abroad to discover Canadian content.
The first 20 projects will share a total of nearly $7.8 million in funding. The projects, in alphabetical order, are:
Apollo Boutique Musicale…
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OTTAWA – NDP Official Languages Critic François Choquette wants Canadian Heritage to prove that its $500 million production agreement with Netflix will include the production of French-language content.
Choquette says that the agreement, which promised to produce original Canadian content in both official languages, committed only 5% through a $25 million envelope to French-language content but without any guarantee that content will actually be produced. And that, the Quebec MP maintains, runs counter to the Official Languages Act.
"Where is the equality among Canada's official languages in this case? This is a real shame in a country where 22% of the population’s…
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TORONTO – The Canada Media Fund (CMF) is adding new programs and tweaking others to keep pace with market developments, it said Friday while laying out its $353 million program budget for 2019-2020.
The CMF said that the changes to its program guidelines include revisions to its Convergent Stream and Experimental Stream, which were influenced by policy direction from the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Creative Canada Policy Framework as well as feedback received from stakeholders during its consultation.
“The CMF is aware of the impact program changes have on the industry and strives to offer some stability in the…
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CALGARY – The Shaw Rocket Fund is celebrating 20 years of fuelling high-quality, Canadian-made media.
Since 1999, Shaw Rocket Fund has invested more than $220 million in 865 audio-visual programs and associated digital media content for children, youth and families. It supports creative programming in both of Canada's official languages, as well as Indigenous and various languages, on all platforms that air Canadian children's and youth programming.
When it was first established, the Fund provided top-up equity funding for Canadian children's television programs based on investment applications from the independent production sector. In 2004, it shifted its approach and became a…
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OTTAWA – Four sessions from the Canadian Media Producers Association’s Prime Time in Ottawa conference this week will be available for livestream.
No advanced registration is required, just click on the links available here when the events begin as follows:
– Opening address by CMPA president and CEO Reynolds Mastin: January 31 at 9:00 AM ET;
– Beyond Disruption: Crafting a Framework for the Future of the Industry: January 31 at 9:15 AM ET;
– Keynote: The Honourable Pablo Rodriguez, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism: January 31 at 12:35 PM ET;
– The Battle for Talent: Overcoming Scarcity to Build a Winning Team: January…
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OTTAWA – Given the breadth of witnesses and many proposals that have been put before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology over the last number of months, Copyright Board CEO Nathalie Théberge says the review and potential impact of the proposals will take time to assess.
“There will be a transition period, during which all players involved, including the Copyright Board and the parties that appear before it, will need to adapt and change their practices, behaviours, and, to some extent, their organizational culture,” she said, speaking about potential Act changes before the committee in Ottawa on Wednesday.
She…
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OTTAWA – Divergent opinions on whether a movie and television producer should be credited as an author on their productions took centre stage at the latest Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage which is discussing remuneration models for artists and creative industries in relation to the Copyright Act review.
Speaking on behalf of the Writers Guild of Canada on Tuesday, which represents more than 2,000 English-language writers working in film, television, radio and digital media production, director of policy Neal McDougall pointed out that both scripts and productions resulting from scripts are separate entities under…
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