Organizations including the Canadian Film Centre, the Hot Docs festival and Women in Film and Television — Toronto were among 14 recipients of Ontario’s newly created three-year, $7.5-million Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnership Fund, announced Thursday.

Launched in September by the Ontario Media Development Corporation on behalf of the Ministry of Culture, the fund supports partnerships between film, TV, video games and other media sectors.

‘We’re trying to encourage new partnering among the cultural and creative industries to come up with innovative solutions for some of the business challenges they face,’ OMDC’s acting CEO Kristine Murphy tells Playback Daily.

The OMDC awarded $1.8 million in total to this year’s recipients, while nearly $2.5 million is available for 2008, with $3 million to be doled out in ’09.

The money is directed at domestic and international marketing, capacity building, innovative prototype development and skills development.

Other recipients include the Documentary Organization of Canada, which, with various partners, has created a web-based information and promotional tool at docspace.ca to assist independent documentary filmmakers.

‘We saw a tremendous range of some really innovative and interesting projects,’ says Murphy, adding that they will evaluate how the projects develop over the next few months.

The next deadline to submit projects for the fund will be announced later this year on the OMDC’s website at www.omdc.on.ca