John Galway has been named president of Astral Media’s The Harold Greenberg Fund, the Canadian film industry’s largest private funding agency. He takes over on Sept. 6, leaving behind a much more complex job at Telefilm Canada, where he was head of the English-language television sector.

The Greenberg Fund doled out $3 million to English-language films in fiscal 2005, far less than the $96 million in production funds that Galway signed off on at Telefilm this year.

‘The [Greenberg] fund is smaller, obviously, than the amount that Telefilm invested,’ says Galway. ‘But I think it has a real partnership with producers, and the money can be extremely valuable in making those final tough decisions at the end, when you’re trying to settle on extra cast or extra days of shooting or music.’

The main criterion at THGF is the quality of the project applying, says Galway, who does allow that being in the private sector may simplify some decisions. ‘There’s no particular industry-development role or building-capacity role at The Harold Greenberg Fund,’ he says.

Galway, 39, replaces Wendy MacKeigan as president of THGF, one of the two positions she vacated earlier this year. The other position, chair of the board of directors, has been filled by longtime board member Bryn Matthews.

While Galway agrees that his new job may be less onerous than the one he left, he says that wasn’t a consideration. Neither was any tension that reportedly gripped Telefilm following the surprise departure last year of executive director Richard Stursberg, who left to become executive VP of CBC Television.

‘It was just a nice opportunity that came available,’ says Galway of his move to THGF. ‘I pursued it for personal career-development reasons.’ His move also comes as Telefilm and the Canadian Television Fund are merging their TV-funding resources, inevitably making some positions redundant.

Galway says his new duties will involve him more deeply in development. He plans to consult with staff and all interested parties before making any big moves. ‘I don’t want to fix anything that isn’t broken,’ he says.

Galway previously was Telefilm’s regional director for Ontario and Nunavut. He has also worked at the CTF, the Ontario Film Development Corporation and the Toronto International Film Festival.

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