While documentary production in Canada is still driven primarily by TV presales, it looks like a new model may be on the horizon. Record audiences at Hot Docs 2004 helped to confirm a growing domestic appetite for docs on the big screen.

The recent success of feature docs such as Bowling for Columbine, coproduced by Salter Street Films, and Canadian release The Corporation have made the doc community eager to address the eligibility of feature-length docs for funding currently reserved for dramatic features. This was one of the key issues discussed at the NFB Telefilm Documentary Policy Summit, an invitation-only policy session held in Toronto April 23.

As a result of discussions at the summit surrounding the increase in feature-length doc production, Telefilm Canada executive director Richard Stursberg has committed to working with the CTF and NFB to develop a more coherent documentary policy over the next 18 months.

Sandy Crawley, executive director of the Documentary Organization of Canada, says that while he is pleased the major cultural agencies are taking a closer look at funding for theatrical and POV docs, he wishes the process could move faster.

‘Telefilm is committed to a drama approach to the [Canada] Feature Film Fund until 2006,’ he says. ‘In the interest of the collective industry that could be a straitjacket.’

Stursberg, on the other hand, says he is encouraged by the success of recent cinema docs and sees the trend as a potential vehicle to help fulfill Telefilm’s mandate of a 5% box-office take from indigenous production.

‘To develop a coherent and intelligent doc policy we have to consult a large and diverse group of people with complicated questions, so I think spending a year to get it done properly is the best thing to do,’ he explains.

In 2006, Telefilm will renegotiate the CFFF with the government. At that time, Stursberg says the studies and consultations necessary to discuss building Canada’s feature doc industry should be completed.

‘Over the next year we would look at what the financing requirements really are, then we would take that information with us when we go back to the government to discuss renewal of the FFF,’ he says.

Telefilm already formally changed its guidelines this year to indicate that it is prepared to help with the distribution of feature docs. Telefilm helped cover marketing expenses and the cost of blowing up The Corporation to 35mm after Toronto-based distributor Mongrel Media acquired the made-for-TV doc. It did the same for Nettie Wild’s FIX: The Story of an Addicted City, a doc about drug addiction in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

‘The question now,’ says Stursberg, ‘is should we also become involved in production financing for feature docs.’

He took the first step toward answering this question less than two weeks after the Doc Summit, at a May 3 meeting with Jacques Bensimon, NFB chair and government film commissioner, during which the pair followed up on discussions initiated at the summit.

According to Bensimon, the documentary industry in Canada is now worth a total of $366 million and provides 15,000 jobs, evidence that working with Telefilm and the CTF to address doc-funding issues is an important initiative.

‘Are broadcast presales the only model? Not necessarily. I think we have to explore other ways of looking at [doc financing],’ says Bensimon. ‘The Corporation had to go through the process of being presented to the CTF as a series in order to become a feature film. I hope that now we can approach feature [docs] for what they’re worth and be able to make a distinction from television docs.’

Although the joint NFB-Telefilm-CTF initiative is still in its early stages, Bensimon says they should have an announcement to make at the Banff Television Festival in June.

-www.telefilm.gc.ca