The Canadian Television Fund won’t be alone in awaiting federal renewal next year – each of the funders launched via the Canada Feature Film Fund in 2000 will either expire or be revived in 2006. Still, the need to campaign for renewal, to educate members of Parliament and cabinet ministers on the importance of preserving all the CFFF’s small but mighty offspring is a first of sorts for the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund.

While it’s not the first time the CIFVF, mandated to support educational and informational projects that contribute to lifelong learning, has fought to survive, it is the first time it has done so in its current incarnation.

Handed six years of stable funding when the CFFF was introduced, the ‘nontheatrical fund,’ as it’s known, receives most of its $1.6 million from the Department of Canadian Heritage, with less than $50,000 annually coming via a Star Choice benefits package. In its pre-CFFF lives, this fund was operated by different government departments, was cut altogether, was re-formed in 1991 at arm’s length from government and ‘lurched about chasing pockets of money,’ according to CIFVF executive director Robin Jackson.

‘Back in 1989, the [then] Non-Theatrical Production Fund got cancelled because it was working away and succeeding quietly. We need to make people aware of who we are,’ Jackson says. She tried to introduce MPs to the fund by inviting them to a February cocktail party in downtown Ottawa, where the fund is based. While Sarmite Bulte, parliamentary secretary to Heritage, attended and gave a short speech, she was the lone MP on hand.

Jackson will find another way to get to MPs – she has chased nontheatrical dollars since she moved from the CRTC to the newly revived fund in 1991. Because CIFVF is a creature of the CFFF, Canadian Heritage is bound to analyze it as part of its overall review of feature film policy.

Jackson says that Nordicity Group, an Ottawa-based consulting firm, is preparing an analysis, looking at the quality and diversity of projects supported, the number of emerging filmmakers assisted and the number of producers who have continued in the production industry after receiving the fund’s help.

Fund statistics show that nearly 30% of 395 film and video applicants supported by CIFVF between 2000 and 2004 were emerging talent with five or fewer credits. (The fund is required to ensure that about 10% of producers assisted are ’emerging.’) Inexperienced producers appreciate the fund because, as noted in its recent submission to the Heritage Standing Committee, it ‘is the only funding agency in the country that does not require that a broadcast licence be in place in the financing structure of projects… [It] can be very difficult for a newcomer to gain the attention of a broadcaster, let alone get a broadcast licence…’

To demonstrate the continuing success of former CIFVF recipients, Jackson names names – Ira Levy, Rudy Buttignol, Julia Keatley, Barbara Barde, Laura Michalchyshyn, Jean Lemire, Frances-Anne Solomon and Zacharias Kunuk. Successful productions include the feature doc The Corporation, originally intended to be three one-hour films.

While educational productions aren’t typically ‘commercial,’ they’re usually welcomed by teachers, parents and others who need up-to-date information on specific issues.

‘Without funds like the CIFVF that support the independent filmmakers, especially for educational types of films, I would not be able to make my budget,’ says Toronto producer/director Karen O’Donnell.

O’Donnell is currently making her second film on the topic of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The first, Odd Kid Out, explained the disorder and how it feels to live with it. Commissioned by TVO, this POV doc received a crucial contribution of $30,000 towards its $255,000 budget from CIFVF. Since its 2003 release, it’s been in hot demand among educators, parents, medical groups and festivals. W Network has second broadcast window and Vision TV third.

For indie producers without licences, the fund is ‘a small but incredibly critical piece of the funding,’ agrees director/producer Ali Kazimi, who’s on the festival circuit with Continuous Journey, a $210,000 feature doc about an infamous 1914 incident in which a boatload of immigrants from India were denied entry into Vancouver Harbour. The film, which earned acclaim at the 2004 Hot Docs, was not licensed when Kazimi applied to the fund, but TVO eventually came on board.

‘I’ve been really fortunate,’ the filmmaker says. ‘My films have had a fairly long life in the educational framework, and that’s what the fund is all about.’

Jackson says she hopes a decision on CIFVF’s renewal will be in by December.

-www.cifvf.ca

-www.oddkidout.com