Creative BC has selected 22 scripted and unscripted projects for $1.49 million in grants via its Production Program.
The program was launched in 2020 via an investment from B.C.’s Domestic Motion Picture Fund as a way to help local productions receive support without the need for a broadcaster or distributor to trigger funding. It provides up to $200,000 in production and post-production support for long-form scripted features, documentaries and series from majority B.C.-owned companies.
According to Creative BC, 84% of the recipients in this round of funding were directed to emerging filmmakers and/or those who identify as Indigenous, Black, a person of colour, 2SLGBTQIA+, a woman, non-binary or as having a disability.
Receiving $200,000 is the scripted feature Holy Days from writer-director Nathalie Boltt, a Canada/New Zealand coproduction from Lily Pictures and Auckland-based Firefly Films. Producers on the film are Lily Pictures’ Sushant Desai and Michelle Morris, Firefly’s Emma Slade, Victoria Dabbs and Roxi Bull, and Tainui Stephens.
Four scripted features have received $100,000 under the program, including Tasha Hubbard’s Birth of a Family (Experimental Forest Films, January Films), produced by Tyler Hagan and Julia Rosenberg, and Helen Shaver’s The Keeper (Screen Siren Pictures), produced by Trish Dolman, Christine Haebler and Steven Thibault.
The other two scripted features are Selling It (Independent Edge Films), produced by Kyle Mann, Noah Segal and Christine Piovesan, and The Unveiling of Benjamin Feldman (Omnifilm Entertainment), produced by Nicole Shizuka Oguchi, Brian Hamilton and Marie-Claude Poulin.
Two documentary features received $100,000: Siku Allooloo’s Indigéna (Arc-en-Ciel), produced by Allooloo and Jessica Hallenbeck, and Carmen Pollard’s Knowledge Network-bound Up in the Clouds, Down in the Valley, produced by Pollard and Jenny Rustemeyer.
Other selected projects include Ben Pickles’ scripted film Any Other World (Tilt 9 Entertainment), which received $80,000, and Baljit Sangra’s documentary A Ballad for Judi (Viva Mantra Films), receiving $76,500.
Of the 22 selected projects, five are receiving post-production support: Jules Koostachin’s scripted film Angela’s Shadow (ChakasTeTin Productions) with $48,000; Chester Sit’s film Slant, produced by Sit and Richard Greenhalgh, with $45,000; factual series @Home (Pow Wow Productions) from producer Tamara Bell, with $40,000; and two documentaries, Damien Eagle Bear’s #skoden (Dirty Jacket Productions) and Mia Golden’s doc Tug of War, each receiving $20,000.
The recipients were supported as part of the second intake round of the 2023-24 Production Program. The total investment from the program is $3.3 million across 58 projects. The complete list of recipients in this intake round is available on the Creative BC website.
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