MONTREAL — The new director general of the NFB’s French program Monique Simard says she wants to ‘put the most money possible on the screen’ by eliminating four producer jobs and reinstating the filmmaker in residence program.

‘I tried to lighten up the structure to make it more efficient,’ Simard told Playback Daily. The former head of Montreal-based Productions Virage estimates that her changes will free up roughly 20% of the Quebec studio’s $5 million production budget for filmmaking.

Two new senior producer jobs and an assistant director position will be created — the latter will oversee programming and digital strategy — and two filmmaker-in-residence spots will open up. Specific details about this program will be made public in the coming months, although Simard promises one of the in-house residences will be filled by a woman. There has been controversy in the Quebec filmmaking community this past year over the under-representation of female directors.

‘The residence program will give filmmakers a chance to work closely with the NFB’s production teams by joining the institution for a specific period of time,’ says Simard.

A former Parti Quebecois president and VP of one of the province’s most powerful labor groups, the Confederation of National Trade Unions, Simard boasts of her four decade relationship with the federal institution. Her first experience working at the NFB was when she was part of the cast on Claude Jutra’s 1969 film WOW. ‘I love the NFB. It has an incredible reputation around the world for excellence.’

Once a rising star in the PQ — she was elected in the Montreal South Shore riding of La Prairie in 1996 but resigned in 1998 — Simard says she was surprised by the PQ’s announcement last week that it planned to demand that Quebec be allowed to pull out of federal cultural agencies such as the NFB, Telefilm Canada and the CRTC if it wins the upcoming provincial election. PQ leader Pauline Marois says if her party is elected it will ask for $300 million from the feds to make her vision happen.

‘I learned about it in the newspaper. It has nothing to do with me. I don’t get mixed in electoral campaigns. I’m a bureaucrat,’ says Simard.