New NFB strategy stresses innovation and accessibility

Creating and distributing innovative and original films that "just can't be found elsewhere and deliver enormous value" to Canadians is a key message in the National Film Board's new strategic plan for the next five years.

The agency launched the plan and outlined its goals through 2012-2013 in Toronto this week during the Hot Docs film festival.

"The strategic plan is a kind of a manifesto and a vision. It's a sense of where we want to go," NFB chair and government film commissioner Tom Perlmutter told CBC News on Friday afternoon.

The vision includes a return to the board's roots of supporting filmmakers, socially engaged productions and making its projects available to Canadians across the country. However, it alsoaddresses theboard'srenewed focus on new media and technologies.

The board asked itself, "How do we deliver on the meaning of being a public sector producer and distributor? How do we keep reinventing ourselves?" Perlmutter said.

Cross-Canada chats, townhalls informed plan

Though elected to his current post just last June, Perlmutter joined the NFB in late 2001 and said he "made an enormous effort to connect with Canadians by going out into communities, being present where the film board was present, or where the film board wasn't present and asking 'why aren't we here?'"

These travels coupled with internal consultations and a cross-country tour by officials to gather input, comments and feedback from both the film industry and different communities have been shaped into the new plan.

The plan lays out the NFB's goal to reflect Canada and matters of interest to Canadians and the world through the creation and distribution of distinctive and excellent audio and video works as well as the following strategies by which the agency hopes to achieve its mission:

Funding is one of the major challenges, Perlmutter admitted, saying the NFB operates on an annual budget of about $64 million that hasn't changed for years and faces increasing costs, for instance from producing and delivering high definition and other digital works.

Another challengeis making sure that the Canadianpublic understands the value of public institutions like the NFB, he said.

"I look at the film board and what I see is an enormously vital part of the Canadian cultural and social fabric and it's an institution that's unique in the world. There's nothing like it. It's part of what makes us distinctively Canadian," Perlmutter said.

"It kind of has to be nurtured and maintained for future generations."