Edmonton: The Alberta-based National Screen Institute is embarking on an expansion effort which will see the development of a festival in Manitoba, the contracting out of nsi training initiatives to other provinces across the country, and the internationalization of its flagship Drama Prize program.

Steering the growth spurt is the nsi’s new executive director Cheryl Ashton, who took over the position in February from the non-profit organization’s founder Jan Miller.

‘The nsi is ready for the next step,’ says Ashton. ‘It has a solid foundation and has done an incredible job attracting participants across the country and offering them the chance to hone their skills.

‘But it was created 12 years ago and huge changes in the industry have occurred since then. The nsi has to ensure that it is not just keeping up but is developing a strong proactive attitude and can respond quickly as new avenues develop.’

As head of the Manitoba Motion Picture Industry Association for the past three years, Ashton was responsible for managing the development of Manitoba’s first labor-based tax credit, its film crew training initiative, a cultural industries new media program, and a five-year strategic plan for the local film industry.

Ashton and her team determined the key priority for the province’s film industry was to foster professional development opportunities and a festival.

The association evaluated training programs across Canada and decided the Edmonton-based nsi model was the most favorable to adopt because of its practical and cost-efficient elements – particularly in that filmmakers are not forced to take up residence in another province and the program allows participants to focus on one specific area of training.

The mmpia persuaded the Manitoba government to back its bid to move the nsi from Alberta to Manitoba and the producers association laid an offer on the table to the nsi board of directors.

At a March 10 meeting, the nsi agreed on a counteroffer – rather than move its base from Edmonton, it would expand into Manitoba – which was accepted by the Manitoba government.

‘With 12 years of success and expertise in Edmonton, to carte blanche move everything to Winnipeg would have been dangerous,’ says Ashton.

Furthermore, the nsi staff made it clear they were not in the position to relocate, so Ashton would have had to recruit new staff. Under the terms of the interprovincial trade agreement, the Manitoba government and City of Winnipeg were initially only able to offer the nsi the equivalent funding incentive provided by the Alberta government and City of Edmonton, roughly $160,000 per year combined. But now that the decision has been made to pursue an agreement, the nsi can go back to the bargaining table and push the governments to ante up increased support, says Ashton.

The plans for Manitoba are still preliminary, but Ashton anticipates the Local Heroes Festival will be recreated in or extended to Manitoba. Since Local Heroes does not screen more than one film at a time (a total of 16 Declaration of Independents shorts), the Winnipeg event would open up the possibility of programming additional films.

Also a top priority on Ashton’s agenda is making the Drama Prize program an international event. Negotiations will soon be underway with film organizations and governments in England, Australia, Scotland, Ireland and New Zealand, among others, to sponsor a Drama Prize team from their respective countries who would train in Canada with the filmmakers at the Drama Prize writer, director and producer workshops, then return to their homeland to produce their shorts, which would receive a world premiere at the Local Heroes festival in Edmonton the following year.

‘There is a real movement towards international coproduction and the sooner we start introducing emerging filmmakers to those in other countries the sooner professional relationships will start forming,’ says Ashton.

With the federal government turning over training dollars to provincial governments, the timing is also right to contract out the nsi’s assorted professional development workshops to other provinces.

As opposed to the high costs and difficulties arising from sending filmmakers to Edmonton for training, the nsi will offer producers associations the opportunity to contract the institute to deliver a program designed to meet the specific training requirements of their region.

For example, mmpia’s film crew-training program expires in a year’s time, and Ashton says it makes sense for the Manitoba producers association to negotiate with the nsi to take over the program delivery while also integrating the expertise of filmmaking professionals in Manitoba.

‘That’s the secret of nsi’s success,’ says Ashton. ‘It doesn’t have any brick-and-mortar responsibilities. It is, in effect, a virtual development center.’

The past year also saw the inaugural Features First program, headed by Miller and presented in partnership with Telefilm Canada. It takes five regionally based filmmaking teams through a year-long customized program that guides their feature-length projects through the development phase.

Ashton confirms that in late October, Features First will be officially renewed for a second year and the board will likely make a decision to open up the program to emerging filmmakers in Ontario and Quebec who are currently ineligible.

As well, the nsi is considering the possibility of developing a program to take some of the developed scripts into a production program.

Looking to her long-term goals for the nsi, Ashton envisions developing a small business training program to help filmmakers grow self-sustainable production companies. She sees this as a crucial progression in the nsi’s continuum of training, which begins with the teen nhtv summer filmmaking camp, moves into development and production of short films and first features, and provides marketing opportunities at Local Heroes and the nsi pitching workshop.

‘Where I see a weakness is that we have an incredible talent pool in this country who want to create legitimate filmmaking businesses and they are stonewalled by financial institutions,’ explains Ashton.

She is aiming for a program that would involve working with banks and other corporate interests to develop a production company startup financing program.

The overall expansion efforts will be a step towards garnering further sponsorship and financial support for the nsi and its new initiatives. Although attracting participants from across Canada, Ashton says the nsi has continually battled its regional image because of its base in Edmonton.

For potential sponsors which didn’t think the nsi had a high enough profile, she says the organization can now build an argument for their support and offer a bigger hit for their dollar as the program develops a Canada-wide and international identity.

A new board of directors has been announced to steer the nsi through the upcoming year of expansion activity. Garry Toth has stepped down from his position as chair (he remains on the board) and Manitoba Film and Sound’s Carole Vivier has taken over the role. Other new appointments to the board include Viacom Canada’s managing director Joanne Fraser, Vidatron Communications president Tim Gamble, Ontario Film Development Corporation’s executive director Alexandra Raffe and Winterlight Productions’ Nancy Trites Botkin.