NFB says progress made on gender-parity goals for its films

The National Film Board is giving itself two thumbs up for progress on improving gender parity for directors of its films.

One year ago today, NFB chairperson Claude Joli-Coeur announced the goal of having 50 per cent of its productions directed by womenby 2019, and allocating 50 per cent of all production spending to films directed by women.

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"We're doing well, overall, in our documentaries and animation and interactive productions," he told On The Coast guest host Gloria Macarenko on Tuesday.

"We are a little bit behind for numbers of projects directed by women and a little bit ahead in terms of budgets. It's a work in progress but very well started."

Astudy by Women in View found that of the 91 feature-length films Telefilm invested in during the 2013-2014 fiscal year, only 17 were directed by women.

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The NFB wrote in a release that in their 2016-2017 fiscal year, 44 per cent of NFB works were directed by women compared to 51 per cent by men and five per cent by mixed teams.

In terms of production spending, 43 per cent went to projects helmed by women, 40 per cent went to productions directed by men and 15 per cent went to mixed teams.

In other creative positions a much wider gender gap still exists.

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The NFB says on productions they funded in 2016-2017, women held 27 per cent of screenwriting positions, 24 per cent of editing positions, 12 per cent in cinematography and 13 per cent in music.

On Tuesday, the NFB announced they will work towards parity in key creative positions in these and other fields for animated, documentary and interactive films by 2020.

A study from San Diego State University found in 2016, women only accounted for 17 per cent of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the 250 top-grossing domestic U.S. films a decline of two per cent from the previous year.

"If we work collectively to change those patterns, we will achieve it," Joli-Coeur said. "It's a willingness of public organizations and of the private sector to all get together to change things."

He says with women well represented among film school graduates, providing women with opportunities after school will allow for more voices and new ideas to be heard.

With files from CBC Radio One's On The Coast