HALF OF NFB PRODUCTION DOLLARS TO GO TO WOMEN

The National Film Board of Canada says at least half of its productions will be directed by women within three years. And NFB head Claude Joli- Coeur says female directors will get half of the board’s production budget by 2019. Joli- Coeur vowed to usher in complete gender parity while speaking at the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival. He says he hopes the NFB can “lead the way for the industry as a whole.” Half of this year’s spending already goes to projects with female directors, but Joli- Coeur notes that can fluctuate from year to year. The agency boasts a strong stable of female filmmakers: Sarah Polley’s intensely personal feature Stories We Tell is considered the NFB’s most popular theatrical documentary of all time, while Torill Kove is an Oscar-winner for her animated short The Danish Poet, and documentary maker Mina Shum is acclaimed for her latest feature, Ninth Floor. In the 2015-16 fiscal year, the NFB says 43.4 per cent of all production spending will go to films directed by women, while 43.5 per cent is slated for films by men.