Telefilm Canada has just released its 2026 Annual Report.
Sylvain Lafrance, Chair of the Board of Directors of Telefilm Canada, says:
“We remain focused on a clear objective: ensuring the organization remains proactive, inclusive and forward-looking in service of Canadian culture and its dissemination.”
Nevertheless, “the volume of Canadian feature film production declined by 3.2% to $460M. The number of films produced also declined, falling from 147 to 132 (-10%).” See Pg. 24 — this represents 4.5% of the total film and television production volume of $10.17 billion and there were only 79 English-language Canadian feature films made in 2024-2025.
“Total ticket sales for all films released in Canadian theatres remained relatively stable in 2025 at $836.9M. For Canadian films, box-office receipts stood at $14.2M, of which $11.3M was for French-language releases and $2.9M for English-language releases.” See Page 26. That’s 1.7% of the box office for Canadian films and only 0.35% of the box office for English-language Canadian films.
It’s as if only 61 seconds of every hour of film screened in Canada in 2025 was Canadian.
Women account for only 35% of Directors in the production portfolio for 2025-2026. See Page 69 and Page 155 for more performance indicators.
My take: Telefilm funded Canadian productions for over $91M and saw only just over $14M at the box office — 15 cents on the dollar. Surely we can do better.