MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR

CFC alumni come from all across Canada and they continue to receive multiple accolades and awards. Here are a few highlights from our CFC Alumni this past year:

− Sarah Polley won an Academy Award for Women Talking (our first).

CFC alunmni received 115 nominations for the 2023 Canadian Screen Awards and took home 28 prizes.

− CFC alumni accounted for 24 of the 31 Canadian features that played at TIFF ‘22.

CFC alumni were among Playback’s 2022 Best of the Year picks for Production Company, Director, Producer and Showrunners.

CFC alumni accounted for 36% of the Globe and Mail’s 2023 list of the 25 most influential people in Canadian television.

CFC alumni are responsible for some of the most critically acclaimed and celebrated content of the year, including Women Talking, Brother, I Like Movies, and Chevalier, and hit TV shows like Sort Of, The Porter, Transplant, and more.

CFC programs continue to be guided by our by our charitable mission - delivering essential training programs to Canadian creators - and by the organization’s four vision words: crucial, relevant, innovative and visible.

We wrapped up the larger Fifth Wave Initiative, Canada's first intersectional feminist business accelerator. Since its launch in 2020, the Fifth Wave Initiative has supported more than 115 women-owned/led companies in Southern Ontario’s digital media sector.

We offered additional support to 12 creators/producers working in immersive media through Scale Up Immersive, a partnership with OYA Black Arts Coalition.

In response to the dearth of diverse writers in senior positions working on Canadian television, we partnered with CBC and BIPOC TV & Film on the Showrunner Catalyst, and have supported 9 writers in the first year of the program.

In 2022-2023, the CFC supported 19 filmmakers, 5 music creators, 8 actors, and 12 writers across our programs. And, for the first time since before the pandemic, we were thrilled to host in-person industry showcases for these programs.

Summer With Hope, the sophomore feature from writer-director Sadaf Foroughi and the 26th feature film produced through CFC Features, had its world premiere this year at the 2022 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. There, it won the Crystal Globe for Best Feature Film before it went on to play multiple festivals, and had its streaming premiere on Crave.

This year, we wrapped the CFC/Netflix Global Project. Over the course of the 5-year partnership, we supported 148 diverse creators, 25 first-time features, 45 original TV pilot and feature scripts, and 47 produced proof of concepts, webseries and short films. This year we also renewed our partnership with Netflix and welcomed them as a lead supporter of the Norman Jewison Film Program.

CFC talent fuels our industry and fills our screens. Their impact on the screen industry continues to grow each year and will only increase as the CFC continues to spot and train future generations of Canadian storytellers.