Commitment to Gender Parity at the NFB: The Results

In March, 2016, we announced that we were making a commitment to gender parity by ensuring that at least half of our productions would be directed by women, and half of all production spending would be allocated to films directed by women. Then in March, 2017, we announced that on top of that promise, we would also commit to achieving gender parity in key creative positions for animated, documentary, and interactive works in production as of 2020.

This year, as part of promise to keep you informed, we’ve released our 2017-2018 results.

Approaching gender parity

We thrilled to announce that we’ve all but achieved our gender parity objectives in terms of number of projects directed by women (47%), the portion of our production budget allocated to women (46%), and key creative screenwriters (47%). While we’re making progress in terms of editors, significant work remains to be done in terms of cinematographers and composers. We know the talent is out there, we just need to find it.

Last year, we created a “talent bank” where women could submit their portfolios, demos, and CVs. To date, we’ve received nearly 100 submissions. Soon, some of our partners, namely, Réalisatrices Équitables (RÉ), Femmes du cinéma, de la télévision et des médias numériques (FCTMN) and Film Fatales—will soon be able to access the talent bank as well. We’re currently in talks with Women in Film and Television to reach a similar arrangement.

The NFB Family

Summary of Results for 2017-2018

During the 2017-2018 fiscal year:

47% of the works completed were directed by women (38% by men and 15% by mixed teams)
46% of production spending was allocated to works directed by women (38% to works directed by men and 16% to works directed by mixed teams)

Note: the number of productions directed by mixed teams jumped from 5% to 15% in 2017–2018.

Completed Projects: