Montreal: The National Film Board’s Documentary East Studio in Montreal has announced the first edition of Reel Diversity East, a competition which gives two emerging visible minority filmmakers the opportunity to direct a short documentary video, with funding and support from the nfb.

The competition, sponsored by Documentary Ontario for the past two years, is restricted to residents of Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. Each applicant must be a Canadian citizen or a landed immigrant, have at least one credit as a director or in a key creative role in a completed independent film or video production, but no more than four credits as a documentary director. Only submissions from filmmakers of color will be considered.

Eligible applicants should submit a treatment that explains the story, the auteur’s perspective and visual style, the film’s estimated length, and the project’s social and cultural relevance.

Budgets are up to $100,000 per documentary film. The films will be shot on digital video, and the finished product must be under an hour in length.

The Reel Diversity East competition deadline is Sept. 29.

– www.nfb.ca/reeldiversity