The Canada Media Fund (CMF) has allocated more than $16.2 million in production funding across its Indigenous and documentary POV programs.
About $8.5 million has been provided to 15 titles through the Indigenous Program, including nine documentaries, four dramas and two children and youth series.
Of the 15 selected projects, four received $750,000: season three of the animated series Chums (Paxolotl Media, Zoot Pictures), Nunavut-based drama The Other Ones (The Other Ones Media), season three of CTV Comedy’s Acting Good (Big Makwa Pictures) and the Manitoba drama Coppermine (White Bear Films).
Projects receiving $550,000 include a number of documentary series from APTN: a fifth season of Taken (Eagle Vision), season three of Sur le terrain (Kassiwi Média), and new series Guardians of the Land (Terre Innue), Qirngaqtuq – Fierce Prayers (Kingulliit Productions) and Métis Foodies (Wookey Films).
The Indigenous Screen Office will take over administration of the Indigenous Program from CMF starting on April 1, 2025.
The 2024-25 Indigenous Program projects were evaluated by a jury of Indigenous industry professionals, including Asia Youngman, Danielle Rochette, Jamie-Lee Reardon, Joshua Nilson, Rachel-Alouki Labbé and Rhayne Vermette.
CMF invested $7.7 million to 26 documentary projects via the POV Program, which supports one-off documentaries. About $5.2 million was allocated to 15 English-language titles and $2.5 million to 11 French-language ones.
The funded titles include the documentary feature Cut Print Thank You Bye (Item 7) about the late filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée, which was one of 10 to receive $400,000.
The other docs to receive the top level of funding include Maggie (Murmur Media), CBC’s Love Forever (Antica Productions), Doula (Muse Entertainment), Don’t Come Upstairs (Don’t Come Upstairs Films), Tomson Highway: Permanent Astonishment (White Pine Pictures) and Amazing Tale of the Peace River Meteorite (Intuitive Pictures), TVO’s The Pitch (The Cutting Factory) and Ba’s Book (Intuitive Pictures), and Corus Entertainment’s Baie-James 1975 (Picbois Productions).
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