While the independent film community in Canada waits with bated breath for Telefilm to release the latest guidelines for their excellent Talent to Watch program, the NFB reminds us there are other sources of money to help you make your movie.
Eleven, to be exact:
- The Bell Fund
- Canada Council for the Arts
- The Canada Media Fund
- The Canada Media Fund English POV Program
- The Hot Docs CrossCurrents Doc Fund
- The Hot Docs Ted Rogers Fund
- The Quebecor Fund
- The Rogers Documentary Fund
- The Rogers Cable Network Fund
- The Telus Fund
- Crowd-funding sites such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo
Conspicuously missing from the list is BravoFACT, which the CRTC allowed Bell Media to kill last year.
My take: thank you, NFB, for helping us not fixate on Telefilm. Nevertheless, the Talent to Watch program remains the holder of the best odds on $125K — something like 1 in 6 by my math: Telefilm has announced they’ll fund 50 projects this year and each of approximately 30 recommending partners can forward two feature and one web project for consideration — that’s 50 / (33 * 3) = 50 / 99 = 50% odds at Telefilm. I suspect that each partner will not receive more than nine projects — that’s 3 / 9 = 33% odds at your local media centre. Combining the two, we get 0.5 x 0.33 = 0.165 = 16.5% which is approximately one in six. Roll the die! Your chances of funding your first feature will never be better.