The National Film Board (NFB) is restructuring its studios and placing all of its French-language documentary production in the country in Montreal under the supervision of executive producer Nathalie Cloutier.
Now overseen by the Documentary Studio of Quebec and the Canadian and Acadian Francophonie, French-language production thus loses its only executive producer located outside Quebec, Denis McCready, who held the position in Toronto.
At the same time, the NFB will proceed to hire new Francophone producers, including one for Ontario and Western Canada and one for Quebec. Moncton-based producer Christine Aubé will remain in place.
During this time, the position of editor at the Interactive Studio in Montreal, occupied to date by Valérie Darveau, has also been abolished.
In an interview, the Executive Director of Creation and Innovation at the NFB, Julie Roy, explains that this last position had been opened when the Interactive Studio was created in 2009 and that the work accomplished since will make it possible to relay these tasks to freelancers.
“We always have limited resources to juggle with. For me, the idea was to reduce the layer of executives and reduce the number of executive producers, at the level of the Creation and Innovation division, which I manage, i.e. the ten studios of the French program and the English program. There is a change that has also been made to the English program, not just to the French program. »
Julie Roy confirms that this restructuring, which abolishes as many positions as it creates, will also give the NFB the opportunity to increase its representation of diversity among producers. On the English side, a producer of Aboriginal descent, Niki Little, has just been named.
The NFB also has “a diversity and inclusion plan, continues Mme Roy. I take every opportunity to find a group of producers that will correspond to the diversity and Canadian demographics. So, I need to create these spaces to go and recruit”.
“The physical entity of the Toronto office remains there,” she explains. But the producer or producer that we are going to choose [pour l’Ontario et l’ouest du Canada], I can’t tell you where it’s going to be located. Because our intention is really to find a candidate from francophone minority communities. »
“Quebec’s major documentary studio will have four producers, two for the Francophonie outside Quebec, and two for Quebec, so an equal ratio,” she adds.
On the side of the Alliance of Francophone Producers of Canada, director Carol Ann Pilon nevertheless expressed concerns about the fact that Francophone producers outside Quebec will now be served by an executive producer based in Montreal. Mme Pilon indicates that she will consult her members on this subject.
The Front of independent directors of Canada, which also brings together directors outside Quebec, was still, Friday, to assess the impacts of the restructuring. “It is difficult for us to comment on the restructuring of the NFB since we are currently evaluating the various impacts that the merger of studios will have on French-language creation and production outside Quebec,” said the director general, Jean -Francois Dube.