Montreal: The beginning of 2006 brings closure for National Film Board commissioner Jacques Bensimon. This year will mark the conclusion of his five-year mandate as head of the Crown corporation, which – given the straits the NFB was in during much of the ’90s – has been marked by a return of good fortune for its formerly ailing filmmakers.

Bensimon arrived at the NFB in 2001, after the board had weathered a series of devastating cuts from Ottawa, losing some $26 million – or 32% of its budget – between 1994 and 1998.

Since then, in particular in the past two years, there has been new momentum at the board, with major announcements of new coproductions, expanded distribution efforts, a return to continuous employment for NFB employees (as opposed to contract work) and, perhaps most notably, a return to investing in dramatic films.

The changes Bensimon has implemented were capped off late last year when it was announced that Nathalie Courville, a veteran of Montreal’s L’Équipe Spectra, the organization that puts on the city’s hugely successful jazz festival, was appointed to the new position of director general of marketing and communications. Her arrival is being billed as a ‘crucial step’ to building the NFB brand.

The heightened activity points to a new phase for a rejuvenated and more hip NFB, one at odds with its nagging reputation as old-school and overly earnest.

‘When the NFB started, it was a revolutionary organization that was ahead of its time,’ said Bensimon in an interview with Playback late last year. ‘Now, 66 years later, we have a chance to reinvent the NFB, with the same philosophy that [the first commissioner, John] Grierson started it with.’

The board’s mandate to produce, distribute and promote films about Canada was spelled out in the National Film Act of 1950, 11 years after it was launched as the National Film Commission through an act of Parliament.

As Canada has evolved, so has the NFB. This past year alone saw the board’s 11th Oscar win, for the groundbreaking short Ryan; the premiere of doc copro Souvenir of Canada, featuring cultural icon Douglas Coupland; and production of Joshua Dorsey’s The Point, a youth-oriented ensemble piece that shot in Montreal; the drama Family Motel (with Montreal’s Ina Fichman coproducing); an unnamed interactive project coproduced with the Canadian Film Centre; and the suburban sprawl feature doc Perfect, by Gary Burns (waydowntown) and Jim Brown.

The board is also developing the drug-themed drama Hunger, with Vancouver’s Nettie Wild (Fix: The Story of an Addicted City).

‘What you need to do is inspire people to get back to the essentials of the mandate,’ Bensimon adds.

The NFB has done all this with no new cash from the federal government.

For Bensimon, it’s been a concerted effort by him and his team to enhance copros, develop new markets for distribution, and rely on the NFB’s traditional strengths. New revenues have been generated by enhanced forays into institutional markets such as schools, universities and libraries, and by increased global sales.

For example, the doc series Bombay Nights: Life on the Other End recently presold to National Geographic Channel, earning US$125,000. In an agreement signed in December, the NFB also teamed with Discovery Channel to coproduce and co-distribute a number of environmental documentary projects this year. The agreement covers DVD sales and broadcast deals, and stems directly from the success the NFB and Discovery shared with their HD series Miracle Planet.

Bensimon took over as commissioner in July 2001. He was drawn to the job, he says, because of his long-standing experience with the NFB, where he contributed in various capacities to over 30 NFB films in the late ’60s and ’70s. Bensimon directed the documentaries Rock-A-Bye, a look at rock music of the day, in 1973, and the political film Richard Rohmer and His Referendum: A View from Quebec in 1979.

‘I was driven first and foremost because I had been a filmmaker here and had seen the board in its glory days,’ he says. After the rash of ’90s cutbacks, ‘the NFB responded with a preservation instinct, and that instinct meant one thing: that we focus on production and nothing else,’ he says. ‘The weakness of that strategy was that we no longer had funds for distribution and marketing. So we didn’t have a means to access Canadians. The rental outlets for NFB videos were shut down across the country. We lost our umbilical cord to Canadians.’

The board lost touch with the past, and lost sight of the future, he says. ‘One of the key advantages of the NFB is to be a searching head. We’re here to be groundbreakers and innovators.’

Bensimon notes that a key part of his mandate has been to invest in new technologies. ‘When people were first talking high definition, we cut a deal with NHK in Japan. It costs 30% more to shoot in high def, but we were prepared for it and that has given us a huge advantage now.’

Among recent successes shot in HD is the Gemini-winning doc Shipbreakers, a copro between the NFB and Toronto’s Storyline Entertainment. Current productions being shot in HD include Perfect and The Trouble with Islam, the documentary based on Irshad Manji’s controversial bestseller that challenges conservatism among Muslims.

Bensimon says the NFB is moving towards doing most of its filming in HD. By the end of 2006, he estimates that 65% to 70% of its shoots will be done in the format.

The board also remodelled its Toronto office as a high-tech storefront location in 2002 – offering free access to its newly digitized library in a bid to reconnect with everyday moviegoers.

And while moving forward with new technologies, international partnerships and more coproductions, Bensimon’s philosophy is very much about building on the NFB’s past strengths.

‘When I look back on the Challenge for Change program [the series of films launched in the ’60s that attempted to illuminate various social issues and problems], I see that in some respects, we don’t need to go back and create the wheel – we’ve already got it in place. In the ’70s, aboriginal filmmakers and women filmmakers, through Studio D [the NFB studio dedicated to women filmmakers], were given a voice. Now we have more films about poverty, health care and disabilities being produced. The NFB has long stood as a place where the voiceless are given a voice.’

With so much left to do, the question must be asked: Will Bensimon seek a second term in office?

‘I have put in place a number of requests for additional funding from the government,’ he responds. ‘If we get that, and they need me to stay for a year or two to see the funding implemented, then I will stay for that long. But if not, I will complete my term and then move on.’

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