Vancouver: The bottom-line impact of budget cuts at British Columbia Film – which opted out of television production funding earlier this year – is starkly outlined in the society’s report for fiscal 2002/03, just released.

Compared to the year before when there were 46 B.C. productions sharing production funding of $3.5 million, fiscal 2002/03 lists only eight projects – all features – sharing $1.3 million. By title, that’s an 83% drop in volume and, by investment dollar, it’s a 63% drop.

Even the lucky features, which were funded through a special feature film fund granted by the previous provincial government, are down 27% by title and 11% by investment in the current year.

No documentary production was funded this year. Last year, 24 documentaries and broadcast singles got $644,000 from B.C. Film for production funding and four doc series received $305,000.

No TV movies this year. Last year, two shared $275,000 in production funding.

No TV series this year. Last year, five shared $800,000.

Development funding, however, was up in the current year, with all genres except feature film getting assistance.

Overall, in fiscal 2002/03, 85 productions shared $889,000 in development funding, up from 80 projects and $817,000 last year. The difference this year, though, is that development assistance no longer needs to be paid back.

Grand totals, including production and development funding, also show year-over-year decline. In fiscal 2002/03, B.C. Film was involved in 93 productions sharing $2.2 million, compared to 126 productions and $4.3 million a year earlier.

-www.bcfilm.bc.ca