The Canada Media Fund has confirmed that 25 interactive digital media projects received a total of $3,915,000 in funding through partnerships with the Shaw Rocket Fund and Ontario Creates. In addition, the company has unveiled an investment of $10.7M, through its Pilot Program for Racialized Communities (PPRC), in 20 audiovisual projects, led by production companies owned and controlled by Black people and People of Color.
The 25 interactive digital media projects or projects were funded in the CMF’s 2022-2023 fiscal year. The CMF-Shaw Rocket Fund Kids Digital Animated Series Program funds the production of Canadian digital animated series for children and youth audiences while encouraging the use of new technology. The program has now been running for five years. The program gathered nine projects, which collectively received $3,615,775 in production funding. The CMF contributed two-thirds of the funding, and the SRF provided the remaining third to support the creation of short-form animated content on platforms where kids consume their content. Funded projects for this edition of the program are led by production companies based in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Quebec.
In correlation with the success of the CMF-SRF program, the Canadian Media Fund has secured a new partnership to fund early-stage, CMF Pilot IDM. The interactive digital media development projects from emerging and equity-deserving Ontario companies, the Ontario Creates-CMF Pilot IDM Futures Forward Program provided a little over $300,000 in development funding to 16 digital media projects, with each funder providing half of the sum. The PPRC, credited with funding the 20 project, forms part of the CMF’s Convergent Stream, recognizes the historic barriers members of equity-seeking communities face and supports the growth of English- and French-language audiovisual production by underrepresented producers. Since the program’s launch in 2021-2022 fiscal year, it has allocated more than $33M in development and production funding to 57 audiovisual projects.
This year, production funding invested through the PPRC has been awarded to companies based in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia, with a total of 13 projects in English and seven in French. 10 of the projects are dramas, six are documentaries, and four fall in the Children’s & Youth category. Projects submitted for funding were evaluated by a jury of professionals from racialized communities. The jury tasked with evaluating English-language projects was composed of Juan Baquero, Tristan Barrocks, Ravida Din, Julie Hackett, Baljit Sangra, and Aonan Yang. French-language projects were evaluated by a jury composed of Carla Beauvais, Larissa Christoforo, Amandine Gay, and Jaime Alberto Tobon.
“Advancing opportunities for racialized storytellers is critical,” Marcia Douglas, Vice President of Growth & Inclusion at the CMF said. “The federal government’s three-year investment in the CMF to support underrepresented groups, as part of its 2021 Budget, has allowed the CMF to establish the Pilot Program for Racialized Communities. This is an important program that meaningfully enables these opportunities. We are excited to see these amazing projects come to life.”