Algonquin/Metis filmmaker Michelle Latimer’s feature documentary The Inconvenient Indian is benefiting from the National Film Board of Canada's Indigenous production funds.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
The National Film Board of Canada says it has reached its commitment to spend at least 15 per cent of its production funds on Indigenous works – one year ahead of schedule.
The commitment was part of the NFB’s three-year Indigenous Action Plan, which was announced in June, 2017, in response to recommendations outlined in the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
In sharing its second-year progress on the action plan, the NFB says production is under way or was recently completed on 40 works by Indigenous creators from across Canada.
Those productions include Tasha Hubbard’s award-winning feature doc nipawistamasowin: We Will Stand Up, which is in theatres across Canada; Michelle Latimer’s feature doc The Inconvenient Indian, which is winding up production; and Alanis Obomsawin’s forthcoming documentary Jordan’s Principle.
The action plan was drafted in collaboration with an Indigenous advisory group and contains 33 commitments in four key areas: organizational transformation, industry leadership, production and distribution.
Last year, the NFB said that in the first year of its action plan, it backed 35 Indigenous-directed projects, representing 10 per cent of overall production spending.
The NFB also says Indigenous employees now represent 1.25 per cent of its staff, inching closer to a commitment to achieve 4-per-cent Indigenous representation across all sectors and levels of its work force by 2025.