With Ontario producers increasingly critical of their provincial government’s waning support for film and television, Manitoba producers continue to benefit from their government’s growing support.

And according to Carole Vivier, Manitoba Film & Sound CEO and provincial film commissioner, that support is translating into increased production activity, with a 15% jump in applicants in the latest round of funding.

‘The fact that we have development and equity funding makes all the difference because the tax credits are great, but not enough on their own to grow the industry,’ says Vivier. ‘We’ve been very fortunate in Manitoba to have government support.’

With feature film and development funding commitments still to come, MFS announced $1.2 million in funding to support 11 television projects, which together total over $19 million in production budgets for 2004/05. The commitment, in the form of equity investment, has helped leverage an additional $6.7 million in federal funding and $7.2 million from other sources into Manitoba. The projects received funds under MFS’ Market Driven Television Production Financing Program, reserved for productions solely produced or coproduced by Manitoba prodcos.

Projects that received funding include seven documentaries: Appassionata from Buffalo Gal Pictures, La Voix des Mechif II and A Health Series from First Voice Multimedia, Helping Hands from Rocky Point Pictures, Source au Ruisseau and Voyageur from Rivard Productions, and Sharing Circle 13 from Meeches Video. Four dramatic projects also got funding: Tipi Tales II, also from Meeches, and three productions from Original Pictures – A Bear Called Winnie, Falcon Beach, coproduced with Toronto’s Insight Entertainment, and The Munro Stories, coproduced with Shaftesbury Films in Toronto.

-www.mbfilmsound.mb.ca