Leading by example yet again, the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television and the National Film Board of Canada both announced new initiatives to support women in the entertainment industry. The Academy introduced an apprenticeship program for female directors, while the Film Board is expanding its gender-equity plan by advocating for more women cinematographers, composers, and screenwriters.
According to a press release, the Academy’s Apprenticeship Program “will assist early and mid-career female directors in film, television, or digital media to identify and achieve their career and project goals, hone their directing skills, and develop a network of allies to springboard the advancement of their work.” The program will receive support from the RBC Emerging Artists Project and Canada Media Fund (CMF).
As part of the program, six apprentices will shadow a director for six months, work directly with guest speakers and the other participants via Google Hangouts, and receive “a small honorarium.” A “diverse, regionally representative Selection Committee of six established professionals” convened by the Academy will choose the participating apprentices.
In a statement Beth Janson, CEO of the Academy said, “Gender equality in key creative positions shaping story-telling content is an essential element of a vibrant and profitable media industry.” She continued, “Homogeneity on ours screens is a missed opportunity to capitalize on the diverse experiences of Canadians.”
“Female talent and skill are out there,” agreed Valerie Creighton, President and CEO, CMF. “We only need to level the playing field, so new opportunities for women can be triggered.”
Beginning in May, the Academy will hold an open call “with the goal of ensuring diverse regional representation and with special attention paid to outreach among Canadian women who are members of typically underrepresented groups in the mainstream media industry, including Indigenous Canadians,” the release details. For more information, check out the Academy’s website.
Meanwhile, the National Film Board’s (NFB) initiative aims to achieve “gender parity by 2020 in key creative roles for animation and interactive projects as well as documentaries, and including cinematography, editing, music, and screenwriting,” writes the Globe and Mail. To do so, the NFB will collaborate with educational institutions, professional guilds, and activist organizations like Women in Film and Television Vancouver.
This new push comes after the NFB’s plan for more women directors was such a success. From 2016–17, 44 percent of the Board’s work was women-directed. Another five percent were co-directed by women. However, as NFB chair Claude Joli-Coeur found when researching other roles, not all the stats are as optimistic: 27 percent of screenwriters are women, 24 percent of editors, 13 percent of composers, and 12 percent of cinematographers.
“I saw there was an emergency,” Joli-Coeur said of those numbers. But he isn’t cowed: “We do about 60 productions a year: The talent pool is wider than our output. I’m sure we can find them,” he emphasized, referring to more women writers, editors, composers, and DPs.
In the past year, several organizations in the Canadian film industry have unveiled plans to address gender inequality behind the camera. In November, Telefilm Canada, the country’s biggest film financier, introduced measures to ensure half of the movies it finances will now be directed or written by women. The public broadcaster CBC announced last summer that at least half of the episodes of its popular scripted programs like “Murdoch Mysteries” and “Heartland” will be directed by women.
As mentioned, in May the NFB stated that at least half of its productions will be helmed by women, and half of all production financing will be allotted to supporting women. And in February 2016, Women in View and the Directors Guild of Canada launched the 2xMore project. Its goal is to bring the current number of female-helmed shows from 17 percent to 35 percent by 2018.
