Montreal: The National Film Board’s English Program unveiled a slate of some 60 highly diverse documentaries, animation shorts and productions for young people in a cross-country preview promotion earlier this month.

Barbara Janes, director-general, English Program, says the now-annual preview exercise is essentially a forecast. ‘It’s like trying to take a photograph of a river.’

This year’s nfb production mix covers the ‘whole spectrum.’

Projects range from Salt by four Montreal women high-schoolers turned directors, to the hip-hop chronicle Raisin’ Kane: A Rapumentary from first-time doc director Alison Duke. The lineup also features some of the board’s most venerated names like Jacques Godbout with the just-released historical doc Traitor or Patriot, a coproduction with the French Program, and multi-Oscar nominee Colin Low, whose extended art history doc Moving Pictures traces the parallels and images of war.

Predicting what an nfb film looks like isn’t as easy as it used to be.

‘I think professionalism is something you can take for granted with the Film Board,’ says Janes. ‘What I think is happening now is that we are maintaining our professionalism, but we’re bringing in a wider variety of filmmakers than we used to, both in terms of age and cultural background. So what you’re seeing is more diversity in terms of style and approach,’ says Janes.

Among this year’s cross-country production and release highlights are Newfoundland director Mary Sexton’s Tommy, a loving portrait of her late brother, codco member Tommy Sexton; b.c. filmmaker Moira Simpson’s educational sequel to the acclaimed drug-addiction documentary Through a Blue Lens; Ontario director Laurence Green’s doc on satirist Bruce McCall’s memories of post-war Toronto, Thin Ice; and Winnipeg director Cordell Barker’s latest animated comedy classic, Strange Invaders.

A mid-range nfb tv-style doc has a budget of around $7,500 a minute, or $350,000. Others cost as little as $1,800 a minute, while a few come in well above average.

Other 2000/01 nfb preview production highlights include:

* director/producer Alanis Obomsawin’s Rocks at Whiskey Trench, the fourth film in her landmark series on the 1990 Mohawk uprising;

* the first-ever Inuit feature film, Atanarjuat, directed by Zacharias Kunuk and coproduced with Isuma Igloolik Productions through the nfb’s Aboriginal Filmmaking Program;

* Ann Shin’s Western Eyes, commissioned by CBC Newsworld’s Rough Cuts (Shin is the winner of the ’98 Documenatry Ontario ‘Reel Diversity’ competition);

* David Sutherland and Jennifer Holness’ Speakers for the Dead, a look at a small Ontario town from the perspective of black history, commissioned by Vision tv;

* Oscar nominee Paul Driessen’s inventive, split-screen animated short The Boy Who Saw the Iceberg, about a little boy’s real and imaginary worlds;

* the first two animated shorts for children from the Talespinners Collection, Christopher Changes His Name from director Cilia Sawadago and From Far Away from directors Shira Avni and El-Haj Daoud;

* the Kenton Vaughan rags-to-riches doc on the creator of Spawn, The Devil You Know: Inside the Mind of Todd McFarlane;

* Elise Swerhone’s youth drama One of Them, on the issue of teen homophobia; and,

* the nfb’s latest interactive Web project based on the eye-opening video series What Is…?

This year’s overall English Program budget – including rental overhead for five of six studios, marketing, administration costs and production – remains essentially the same as last year, $29 million.

The program has about $18.5 million for production and $3 million for marketing purposes.

Distribution revenues were $2.7 million in 1999/00, up from $2.4 million the previous year. tv markets accounted for $1.2 million in sales, a healthy increase over the $820,000 in ’98/99, due largely to business from new specialty channels, says Janes.

New NFB coproductions

About a third of nfb docs are coproduced.

This year’s coproductions include:

* the Documentary West film Beaverbrook: The Various Lives of Max Aitken, directed and coproduced by Robert Duncan of International Documentary Television Corporation and presold to ctv;

* the Vancouver production Nuclear Dynamite, an exploration of bizarre uses of atomic explosives, directed and coproduced by Gary Marcuse and Face to Face Media and presold to cbc’s The Nature of Things;

* the Documentary Ontario project Poverty, Chastity, Obedience, a year-long chronicle of a woman who becomes a nun, directed by Cornelia Principe and Andrea Nemtin of PCO Films; and,

* The Fairy Faith, a retracing of the enduring fairy myth from Halifax director and coproducer John Walker, licensed by cbc’s Witness.

To be eligible for additional independent funding, including funds from Telefilm Canada, the nfb’s participation is normally capped at 49% of the budget.

‘We have occasionally done majority coproductions, but it is very, very hard for our coproduction partners to come up with their share of the budget. If our equity debt is high enough then we have to ask why are we coproducing,’ says Janes.

There are no international coproductions in this year’s doc preview. Janes says the nfb is open to international partnerships, but finding suitable subjects has been difficult.

‘Our first priority is really to support projects directed by Canadian filmmakers, so often what you have is an international coproducer who wants to use their director,’ she says. However, Janes says early talks are underway on a coproduction project with pbs. The subject is universal enough, money.

Web strategy

The nfb projects spending up to $5 million on its multi-year website, Canadian History Project.

‘There is also a satellite project out of ACI West in Vancouver called Making History Online, which is just starting now,’ says Janes.

‘Basically we are now putting together a comprehensive Web strategy that will include Cine-Route, the history project, and a revamped corporate site. That’s all in discussion now and will become clear this fall,’ she says.

The nfb’s English Program covers the country from east to west, producing two broad program streams – documentaries and animation, children’s and interactive.

The board operates three documentary studios, typically managed by an executive producer working with four producers.

Documentary East, located in Montreal and Halifax, is headed by exec producer Sally Bochner. Documentary Ontario in Toronto is headed by exec producer Louise Lore. Documentary West is headed by exec producer Graydon McCrea, with producer teams in Vancouver, Edmonton and Winnipeg.

www.nfb.ca/preview