OTTAWA and MONTREAL — Minister of Canadian Heritage Steven Guilbeault today announced continued support for the arts and culture industries, with the announcement of a $300-million recovery fund for arts, culture, heritage and sport sectors and a $200-million reopening fund, with funding to be distributed over the next two years.
Only a portion of that money will go toward supporting movie and TV productions and independent broadcasters.
In a press release, Telefilm Canada said it “enthusiastically welcomes” today’s announcement from Canadian Heritage, saying Telefilm will administer $25 million over two years to support exhibitors across the country to recover and resume pre-pandemic level of activities. Of that amount, up to $16 million of recovery fund money will be allocated to Telefilm’s Theatrical Exhibition Program, and another $9 million will be allocated toward complementary promotional initiatives to encourage Canadian audiences back to cinemas, says Telefilm.
In addition, Telefilm will allocate $10 million in reopening fund money over two years to film festivals across the country through its Promotion Program.
Telefilm says details and updated program guidelines will follow later this summer, and both programs will start to distribute funds this fall.
According to the Heritage Department’s backgrounder, the Canada Media Fund will administer $5 million over two years to support the recovery of third-language community productions.
Other recovery fund distributions include: $10.5 million in 2021-22 to support production of local news and local programming by independent broadcasters (to be distributed by Canadian Heritage partner organizations); and $10 million in new local journalism initiative funding to be distributed over two years (2021-22 and 2022-23) to facilitate the hiring of more journalists in underserved communities.
For the full list of how Recovery Fund and Reopening Fund money is to be distributed, please click here.
