One year into the National Film Board of Canada’s three-year Indigenous Action Plan, Canada’s public producer and distributor is reporting on progress made to date and outlining key actions for the year ahead, in an announcement made by NFB Commissioner Claude Joli-Coeur on June 21, National Indigenous Peoples Day.

First announced by Joli-Coeur on June 17, 2017, the NFB plan responds to the work and recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and Indigenous creators’ longstanding concerns about systemic inequities in the existing Canadian production landscape.

First-year highlights include:

1. Development/production work on 35 Indigenous-directed projects, representing 10% of overall production spending. By 2020, the NFB is committed to reaching 15% in overall production spending on Indigenous-led
2. Almost 900 community screenings as part of the Aabiziingwashi (Wide Awake) Indigenous Cinema Tour, held in every province and territory, working with TIFF, APTN, imagineNATIVE, the Canadian Commission for UNESCO and local partners.
3. A new Indigenous Cinema section at NFB.ca, offering free streaming of more than 200 new and classic NFB Indigenous titles, including newly digitized titles added annually.
4. Development of a new Indigenous Voices and Reconciliation (IVR) Learning Program for students, educators and lifelong learners, which will launch in 2019.
5. Supporting an imagineNATIVE-led initiative to create screen protocols for working with Indigenous filmmakers, subjects and stories.
6. An agreement between the NFB and APTN to pool efforts and expertise in developing protocols for production, distribution and archive management, implementing best practices for staff recruitment, training and other initiatives aimed at strengthening relations with Indigenous creators, staff and partners.
7. Adopting a ground-breaking Indigenous Materials Classification Schema developed by pioneering Indigenous librarians to catalogue the NFB’s online Indigenous Cinema collection.
8. Hiring of two new Indigenous staff members in production and marketing. The NFB is committed to reaching representational equity in staffing by 2025.
9. Close to 50% of NFB staff have participated in Indigenous cultural awareness activities, with training for all staff to be completed by 2019–2020.
10. Partnering on the creation of the Indigenous Screen Office.

The 33 commitments in the NFB’s action plan have been developed in partnership with an Indigenous advisory group made up of experts in production, distribution, community engagement, festivals, broadcasting, education, curation, archives, Indigenous copyright and public policy.           

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