The Canadian Film Centre will receive a $3-million donation from Vancouver-based telecommunications company TELUS Corp., a sum outgoing executive director Wayne Clarkson described at a press conference as the ‘largest single gift we’ve ever received.’

The monies will allow the film center for the first time to fund third-party film and TV productions not related to any of its training programs. As the ‘custodian’ of the TELUS Innovation Fund, CFC will allocate the majority of the $3 million to help producers complete film, TV and new media projects, Clarkson says.

‘This represents an important evolution for the Canadian Film Centre,’ he says. ‘The TELUS gift will involve direct investment in content creation.’

While Clarkson, recently named the new executive director of Telefilm Canada, will not speculate on exactly how the money will be divided up among film, broadcast and interactive projects, he does say it would be best used to close funding loops, making up the final few percentage points of a project’s budget.

Joseph Natale, TELUS EVP and president of the telco’s business solutions unit, says the funds should go to worthwhile projects that have exhausted other revenue streams or have hit a wall in fulfilling their budgets. ‘Venture capitalists have a term for something like this. It’s called angel money,’ he says. ‘If [producers] don’t have the ability to raise money, they can go to someone who can help them.’

The CFC is expected to announce eligibility criteria and annual allotments in the spring.

The fund will also go toward setting up five scholarships of $5,000 each to help Western-based students attend the CFC.

Another part of the donation agreement will see the creation of the TELUS Studio within the CFC’s Habitat New Media Lab, which will act as the training center for the CFC’s popular, award-winning new media program. The program itself has been rebranded the TELUS Interactive Art & Entertainment program.

The deal also opens the door to the possibility that the CFC could administer a TELUS broadcast fund should the telecom enter the cable or satellite distribution business in the next few years as part of its strategy to take on chief rival Bell Canada, operator of the ExpressVu satellite service. Such a fund would likely be mandated by the CRTC were it to award TELUS a licence.

-www.telus.com

-www.cdnfilmcentre.com