The Canadian Television Fund has revamped eligibility rules for documentaries by loosening some Cancon restrictions and redefining what constitutes long-form doc programming, in a move greeted with tempered enthusiasm by the doc community.

Previously, projects submitted to the CTF as part of a broadcaster’s doc envelope had to meet the fund’s four ‘essential requirements.’ The first two stipulate that a project must be certified as 10/10 Canadian by CAVCO, and that Canadians are rights holders as well as the chief developing force. The latter two require that a project address ‘Canadian themes and subject matters’ and be set primarily in Canada.

The new rules, then, allow a broadcaster to spend up to 40% of its envelope on projects that meet only the first two criteria, although these would qualify for a licence fee top-up only. At least 60% of the envelope must then be used on projects that meet all four criteria. These projects would be able to access both a top-up and equity investment. The changes are effective immediately and pertain to projects in the 2005/06 envelopes.

According to CTF president and CEO Sandra Macdonald, the organization was already in the process of reviewing its documentary application criteria when a pair of critical articles appeared in The Globe and Mail in February.

‘What [our special committee] concluded was that there was reason for us to try relaxing our rules,’ Macdonald says. ‘Therefore, [we figured] why don’t we take the steps we took and then look at it after a year and see if we’re happy with what happened.’

Although the new rules make some concessions to producers who complained that the CTF’s Cancon requirements were too stringent, the funder will still only offer equity to projects that meet all four ‘essential requirements.’

‘We have a contribution agreement [with Heritage] that says we are supposed to make ‘distinctively Canadian’ programming, and the amount of money that you can get from public sources if you come to us [with a four-out-of-four project] is a whole lot more than if you just meet CAVCO,’ Macdonald says. ‘By saying ‘you can get more,’ there’s a certain logic that says you have to do more.’

Yet many producers still feel that meeting the 10/10 CAVCO requirement that all key creatives be Canadian should be enough for a doc to qualify for equity.

Docmaker Simcha Jacobovici of Toronto’s Associated Producers acknowledges that he has done well by CTF funding and sees the new rules as a step in the right direction, but still takes issue with the funder’s use of subjective criteria to determine which themes are Canadian and which aren’t.

‘To try to say that when we’re talking about cancer or HIV and we’re running around the world shooting is less Canadian than when we’re talking about igloos is still a sign of provincialism,’ Jacobovici says. ‘[It shows a] lack of confidence that we can stand in the world and have something to say about these things and still be Canadians when we do it.’

Sandy Crawley, executive director of the Documentary Organisation of Canada, sees the new changes as an ‘incremental improvement.’ But he still has more fundamental problems with the CTF, mainly that the current envelope system puts too much influence in the hands of broadcasters.

They, says Crawley, are more likely to direct funds toward projects such as risk-averse series dependent on advertisers than POV docs, which DOC holds as the model of the form.

‘We understand that in theory [the envelope system] could work well if we’re in a maturing industry,’ Crawley says.

‘But it seems that it’s been a bit open to abuse, and it seems too much to expect broadcasters to fulfill cultural objectives, which we still think at least the $100 million of taxpayers’ money should be directed towards,’ he adds, in reference to the federal government’s annual CTF contribution.

DOC might have further reason to worry, as the other CTF change sees it adopting the CRTC’s definition of long-form documentary programming, in effect eliminating a prior requirement that a project should be ‘meditative’ and ‘a long time in preparation.’ The removal of these criteria could open the door to certain projects such as more doc series, according to Macdonald.

-www.canadiantelevisionfund.ca

-www.docorg.ca