Departmental Results Report for 2019-2020

Minister’s message

Commissioner’s Message

Results at a glance and operating context

For more information on the National Film Board of Canada’s plans, priorities and results achieved, see the “Results: what we achieved” section of this report.

Results at a glance

Creation and innovation: In 2019–2020, the NFB produced a total of 75 works: 54 documentaries, 13 animated films, 3 works of fiction and 5 interactive works (1 website, 1 mobile application, 1 installation and 2 virtual-reality works). NFB works received a total of 123 awards this year (67 in Canada and 56 abroad).

Reaching and engaging audiences: The results achieved in 2019–2020 prove that from year to year, Canadian and foreign audiences continue to display a growing engagement with the NFB’s content.

• The number of views of NFB works worldwide was over 81 million, surpassing the target for the year. This figure represents a 10% increase over the 74 million views in 2018–2019.
• Online views continue to break records every year, totalling almost 57 million on all platforms in 2019–2020 (compared with 48 million in 2018–2019).

An institution that reflects Canada’s richness and diversity: In 2019–2020, the NFB met its main commitments to gender parity and the production objectives for its 2017–2020 Indigenous Action Plan.

• 47% of current NFB productions were directed by women and 44% of current production spending was allocated to works by women.
• 15% of overall production expenses were allocated to projects by Indigenous artists.
• As regards diversity and inclusion, a total of 40 films—53% of all works produced in 2019–2020—dealt with issues concerning Indigenous people, diversity, disability or discrimination.

Technological innovation as a central focus: In 2019, as the NFB’s current Technology Plan entered its final year, the NFB began thinking about its new Technology Plan for 2020–2025. The relocation of the NFB’s headquarters and conservation room provided the opportunity to lay the technological foundations for this new plan, which must facilitate remote collaboration on production, post-production and distribution, Canada-wide.

Two successful moves: In fall 2019, the NFB moved its headquarters to the heart of Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles and the conservation room that houses its visual archives to a new building in the Montreal borough of Saint-Laurent.

Operating context

The key factors influencing the audiovisual industry have been documented for a number of years. The most recent findings for Canada¹ show that Canadians are increasingly likely to turn to online platforms and connected devices to access the video and audio content that interests them. The ongoing evolution of technology, proliferation of distribution channels and availability of a near-infinite array of content are some of the challenges that affect the NFB’s ability to fulfil its mandate. In consequence, the NFB needs to adapt and innovate in terms of how it produces, promotes and makes content accessible to different audiences.

Beyond these major challenges, the relocations of the NFB’s headquarters and conservation room were the two events that had the greatest impact on the NFB’s operations in 2019–2020. The NFB’s employees devoted a tremendous amount of time and energy to carrying out these moves successfully. Given the substantial resources dedicated to these moves, ensuring business continuity was essential. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the official opening of the new headquarters building, its public space and its screening room has been postponed to 2021.

Further affecting NFB operations are ongoing government priorities and various initiatives to modernize the federal public service. The NFB’s contribution to Creative Canada (the latest government vision for the creative industries), diversity and inclusion, and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, along with the implementation of various government policies and guidelines (e.g., the management action plans in the wake of the NFB’s core control audit, the Directive on the Stewardship of Financial Management Systems and the Directive on Departmental Security Management), have all required additional resources.

Results: what we achieved

Core Responsibility
Audiovisual Programming and Production

Description:
The National Film Board’s mandate is to create relevant and innovative audiovisual content that interprets Canada and its diversity to Canadians and people around the world. The National Film Board works with filmmakers and artists from every region of Canada to produce exceptional documentaries, animated films, and interactive/immersive works rooted in Canadian experiences and realities. The National Film Board has long been a champion of technological and film innovation, both nationally and internationally. The National Film Board seeks to reflect the perspectives and experiences of communities that are systematically under-represented in the media and to develop innovative new storytelling forms and approaches.

Results:

Creation and innovation

In 2019–2020, the NFB produced a total of 75 works: 54 documentaries, 13 animated films, 3 works of fiction and 5 interactive works (1 website, 1 mobile application, 1 installation and 2 virtual-reality works). Of these 75 works, 62 were NFB original productions and 13 were co-productions.

Once again this year, the NFB showed itself to be a centre of excellence in audiovisual production: it received a total of 123 awards (67 in Canada and 56 abroad).

Here are some highlights of the NFB’s production and programming of audiovisual works in 2019–2020.

Programming that better represents the diversity of Canadian voices

Ever since the NFB was founded, its mandate has been to make Canada and its diverse voices better known, both to Canadians and to the world. The NFB has the responsibility of better representing the unique perspectives of Canada’s various communities, and telling relevant stories that promote understanding among Canadians. In 2019–2020, the NFB worked with filmmakers and other creators from all over Canada to ensure that its works reflected Canadian perspectives. The results have been fairly steady from year to year, though there has been a slight increase in the number of works by filmmakers and other creators from Quebec.

The NFB’s 2019–2020 gender-parity results were excellent, as measured by the proportions of current productions directed by women (47%) and of current production spending allocated to works by women (44%). The NFB also surpassed its objectives for two of its four main creative activities—screenwriting (61% women) and editing (55% women)—and made considerable progress in the categories of cinematography and music composition.

Fiscal 2019–2020 was the last year covered by the NFB’s 2017–2020 Indigenous Action Plan. The organization is currently completing an evaluation of the results achieved to date under this plan and defining future activities regarding the 33 commitments contained in it. The NFB has met its commitment to devote 15% of overall production spending to projects by Indigenous artists.

The NFB’s capacities were limited this year by the relocation of our headquarters and conservation room, the pandemic, and other circumstances, forcing us to delay releasing our master plan on diversity and inclusion. Nevertheless, this year’s programming bore witness to Canadian diversity and contributed to social cohesion and justice in Canada. In 2019–2020, 23% of the NFB’s works addressed subjects related to diversity and multiculturalism, while a total of 40 films—53% of all works produced—dealt with issues related to Indigenous people, diversity, disability and discrimination.

Documentaries that matter

For the NFB, 2019–2020 was an especially rich year for documentaries. The organization produced and co-produced a total of 54 documentaries, including 15 feature-length docs. Documentaries bring stories and perspectives that are often under-represented to the screen. One good example is the feature documentary Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger, Alanis Obomsawin’s 53rd film, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019. Another NFB documentary that received substantial attention was Tasha Hubbard’s nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up. The first film by an Indigenous director ever to open the Hot Docs festival, this work has won 13 awards, including Best Canadian Feature Documentary at Hot Docs, and it ranked as one of the five most popular Canadian films for two months.

Another noteworthy NFB documentary this year was Ramaillages (Gatherings), by Moïse Marcoux-Chabot. A 100% NFB production, it is the first documentary series ever produced for the NFB.ca online platform and was released simultaneously online and at the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma festival. Baljit Sangra’s Because We Are Girls, a vibrant documentary tribute to women’s resistance in the face of profound trauma, won six awards. Lastly, Cheryl Foggo’s John Ware Reclaimed, a much-anticipated medium-length documentary that will come out next year, traces the origins of John Ware, the legendary Black cowboy who lived in southern Alberta from 1882 to 1905.

Cutting-edge animated works

In 2019–2020, the NFB’s animation studios produced and co-produced 12 short films and one medium-length film. Gymnasia, a stop-motion animation film in VR, received critical acclaim at its launch at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Directed by the award-winning duo of Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (Clyde Henry Productions), this groundbreaking, cinematic VR experience flawlessly blends 3D 360-degree video, stop-motion, miniatures and CGI, and pushes the art of puppet animation into uncharted territory. Another stop-motion animation film, Moi, Barnabé (I, Barnabé), by Jean-François Lévesque, was released at the end of the year. This short film presented some major technical challenges, especially regarding set lighting.

Both of the NFB works that received the most awards this year were animated films. Theodore Ushev’s Physique de la tristesse (The Physics of Sorrow), the first fully animated film to use the encaustic, or hot-wax painting, technique, received 22 awards. Regina Pessoa’s Oncle Thomas – La comptabilité des jours (Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days, Ciclope Filmes/NFB/Les Armateurs), garnered 20 awards, including the Jury Award for a Short Film at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

Unprecedented immersive interactive experiences

Immersive experiences are occupying a growing portion of the public space, because of their unique ability to transport people into other worlds and thus sometimes provide a far deeper understanding of the subjects addressed.

At a time when artificial intelligence is everywhere, the NFB, in collaboration with Schnellebuntebilder and EyeSteelFilm, offer a 10-minute incursion into the world of AI with the prototype Chomsky vs. Chomsky. Selected as a New Frontier Exhibition at the Sundance Festival, this project explores the possibilities, limitations and traps involved in AI technology.

Another innovative immersive experience from the NFB this year was The Book of Distance by Toronto artist and filmmaker Randall Okita. This work too was selected as a New Frontier Exhibition at Sundance. It was also shown at Tribeca, Hot Docs, SIGGRAPH and Cannes XR, a revolutionary virtual showcase. This work invites us on an interactive pilgrimage, a moving story of immigration and family, in search of a lost past.

Innovative partnerships

The highly awaited NFB project Parliament: The Virtual Experience was launched at the start of 2020-2021. The Parliament building in Ottawa is the storied seat of Canadian democracy. Although the physical building is closed for renovations for several years, Canadians can now visit it in virtual reality (VR). Co-produced with the Library of Parliament, this innovative VR experience combines photorealism with vivid colour and lighting effects.

In another innovative partnership, the NFB, the Quartier des Spectacles, the Conseil des arts de Montréal and Element AI sponsored Art & IA, an artistic residency in research/creation and artificial intelligence, which produced the experience L’éclat du rire, by multimedia artist Etienne Paquette, multidisciplinary designer and scenographer Mélanie Crespin and clown and street-performance creator Muriel de Sangroniz. The Art & IA residency is an example of the ways that artificial intelligence and art can co-exist.

The NFB as talent incubator

The NFB is an incubator for talent and a laboratory for innovation for young artists throughout Canada. In 2019-2020, emerging filmmakers directed 51% of the NFB’s works, while 56 films received assistance from the NFB’s Filmmaker Assistance Program (FAP) and Aide au cinéma indépendant du Canada (ACIC). Here are just some of the initiatives that the NFB took to nurture Canadian talent this year.

• For its 3rd edition, the NFB’s Jeunes pousses internship program welcomed students from the Université du Québec à Montréal and gave them 10 weeks to produce an interactive project about the resilience of cities in the face of climate change. In addition to completing this project, the students attended a number of master classes with artisans from Montreal’s digital industry.
• For its 4th edition, the NFB’s Projet 5 courts program brought together four pairs of artists, each including a filmmaker and a sound/music artist. In this year’s program, based in Rimouski, Quebec, each duo produced a three-to-five-minute film with the support of experts from the NFB’s French Documentary Studio.
• For its 12th edition, the NFB English Animation Studio’s Hothouse apprenticeship program for emerging animation filmmakers partnered with imagineNATIVE and associate producer trainees Amanda Strong and Amanda Roy to help rectify the under-representation of Indigenous creators in the world of animation. Three emerging filmmakers from Turtle Island participated in this paid 22-week apprenticeship, an intensive program that provided them with both training and the opportunity to create their own works of art.
• In 2019-2020, the NFB partnered with the Canadian Film Centre Media Lab and JustFilms | Ford Foundation to launch Open Immersion II, a laboratory where Indigenous artists create documentary virtual-reality works. This laboratory provides extensive technical training and opportunities for mentoring and for pitching projects, as well as ideas for strategies to improve distribution of VR works by Indigenous artists.

Gender-based analysis plus

Diversity and inclusion are at the heart of our mandate and institutional values. The NFB aims to give a voice to communities that are systematically under-represented in the media landscape, both in front of and behind the camera, such as women filmmakers, Indigenous peoples, official-language minority communities, ethnocultural communities, sexual minorities (LGBTQ2) and people living with disabilities. The NFB’s programming bears witness to Canadian diversity and contributes to the country’s social cohesion.

The NFB’s programming reflects Canadian diversity and contributes to the country’s social cohesion. The works we produce come from creators from a wide range of backgrounds and underrepresented groups, which ensures a plurality of voices and stories from across the country.

In recent years, the NFB has taken additional steps to support gender parity and official-language minority communities and to redefine its relationship with Indigenous peoples. The results of these measures are presented above in this section. Needless to say, GBA+ is an integral part of these efforts.

Experimentation

The NFB has long been a leader in innovative storytelling, employing new technologies and pushing the envelopes of narrative form and cinematographic formats. In 2019-2020, the NFB’s research and development team focused on emerging production formats and thus developed artificial-intelligence-assisted production methods using neural networks. The NFB’s first IA-assisted work, the film XO Rad Magical, by Mi'gmaq director Christopher Gilbert Grant, was created as part of the 12th edition of Hothouse.

Responsabilités essentielles

Content Accessibility and Audience Engagement

Description:

The National Film Board strives to ensure that Canadians from all regions have access to its works across a range of formats. Understanding audiences and their consumption habits, making content available on a variety of platforms, and calling attention to National Film Board productions are thus intrinsic to the organization’s mandate. The National Film Board has a rich collection of over 13,000 titles that constitutes an essential component of Canada’s cultural heritage. Preserving these works for the enjoyment of Canadians and people around the world, both today and in the future, falls under the mandate conferred to the National Film Board under the National Film Act.

Results:

In 2019–2020, the NFB continued to adopt new marketing, discoverability and distribution strategies to increase the visibility of its works, both on traditional and digital platforms, and to reach and engage with more Canadians and audiences around the world. These strategies, first articulated in the early stages of its digital shift 10 years ago, have been evolving over the years and will be developed further in the NFB’s upcoming strategic plan.

The results in 2019–2020 prove that Canadians and audiences around the world are engaging significantly more each year with NFB content. The number of views of NFB works globally exceeded the annual target, surpassing the 81 million mark. This number represents a 10% increase from the previous year. Thirty-two million of those views occurred in Canada (a 2% increase from 2018–2019). Online views continue to break records year after year, nearing 57 million views in 2019–2020 for all online channels (compared to 48 million views the year before).

In addition to providing greater access to its productions, including an increased number of digital-native releases, the NFB strives to foster meaningful conversation with its audiences, encouraging feedback and public discussions around these titles. Through ongoing strategies and initiatives on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the NFB elicited more than 4 million engagement actions (comments, shares, likes, clicks). It now has more than 900,000 followers on all social media channels combined.

NFB works: reaching and engaging audiences

Audience numbers in 2019–2020 were positively impacted by the pandemic lockdown that began in mid-March. In fact, there was a significant increase (17%) in traffic on all NFB website properties this year compared with the previous year. More specifically, in the second half of March, the NFB saw a 150% increase in website sessions and a 415% increase in the number of pageviews compared to the same period in 2018–2019. The results were particularly notable in Canada, where there was a 39% increase in the number of online views in the last quarter (January 1 to March 31) and a 25% increase for the entire year. There was also an increase in views via traditional media, with a record 19 million views of NFB content on television—the highest number of TV views since 2008–2009.

Despite the impact of the temporary closure of museums and cancellation of public events and screenings in March, a month that typically generates a high number of views, the NFB recorded a notable increase in the overall number of views at public and industry events. The NFB continued to have a significant presence at festivals and public screenings in 2019–2020, and partnered with many communities to promote its films and reach a broad segment of the population. For example, for the Aabiziingwashi (Wide Awake) Indigenous Cinema Tour, now in its third year, there was a total of 1,500 community-based screenings organized in all Canadian provinces and territories, yielding 278,376 views. Highly successful launches of feature documentaries included Tasha Hubbard’s nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up, which made history when it had its world premiere at Hot Docs 2019 as the Opening Night Gala—the first film by an Indigenous filmmaker (and the first NFB work) to open the festival. The film won the Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award and was released in theatres across the country shortly after, screening in Saskatoon, Regina, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Sudbury, Victoria, Red Deer, and North Battleford, as well as in Winnipeg at the Indigenous Film Summit. Assholes: A Theory, directed by John Walker, also had a successful festival-circuit run after its premiere at Hot Docs, and screened at Doc Edge New Zealand, the FIN Atlantic International Film Festival, the Vancouver International Film Festival, the Lunenburg Doc Fest and other community festivals. Yung Chang’s This Is Not a Movie had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and its Quebec premiere at RIDM, and was selected to screen at DOC NYC and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).

NFB Education: a learning destination designed to inspire, engage, and spark creativity

The NFB worked on the gradual renewal of its digital platforms, focusing in 2019–2020 on its educational offer: NFB Education, a learning destination whose key aspects are the inquiry-based learning method and NFB storytelling expertise in media. Various components of this ambitious offer were developed, including:

• The final stages of content development and design for the Media School / Digital Storytelling program and the Learning Lodge Thematic Learning Program (formerly called Indigenous Voices and Reconciliation). It should be noted that numerous consultations took place throughout the year with Indigenous-content experts regarding the Learning Lodge program. The feedback confirms that the Learning Lodge is unique and addresses the current needs for educational content.
• Enhancements to the NFB Education flagship product, Ocean School,³ an educational experience that combines powerful storytelling techniques, immersive technologies and interactive media, taking students on a deep dive into the world of ocean science and culture. Two new modules were launched, and the product was integrated with Google Classroom, bringing students and teachers to one of the most popular educational platforms in the world and facilitating the sharing of information between them.
• The NFB’s Educator Network, a community of practice composed of 70 dynamic teachers from across Canada, was created to stay in close contact with the educator community and solicit feedback on NFB content and programs, helping to shape its development and promote it within educator networks and communities throughout the country.
• Special and curated programming on the website was made available for free and accessible to parents without CAMPUS subscriptions, showcasing a diverse range of educational resources, such as mini-lessons, playlists, films, interactive projects and apps. This special programming produced excellent results, with a 385% increase in pageviews for the last two weeks of March compared to the same period last year.

The NFB’s Public Space

The NFB’s new headquarters in Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles includes a large public space that’s destined to become a meeting place for creators, technical artists, experts and members of the public. In keeping with its vision of being more connected to its audiences and the general public, in 2019–2020 the NFB completed the main design of its Public Space. However, the impact of the pandemic outbreak forced the NFB to revise the schedule and programming for its official-opening activities. The official opening is now slated for 2021.

Conserving and preserving the NFB’s collection

The preservation, conservation and digitization of works in the NFB’s collection ensure their longevity and availability to Canadian and world audiences today and in the future. The most recent database update indicates that the NFB’s complete collection (consisting of active and inactive titles) now stands at 14,275. With the digitization of the active collection now complete, in 2019–2020 the NFB accelerated the digitization of 5,710 titles in its inactive collection. As of March 31, 2020, the NFB had completed 2,762 titles. The digitization of audiovisual archives (stock shots and still images) was also integrated into the Digitization Plan and will begin in 2020–2021.

Now in its final year of the 2016–2020 Technology Plan, the NFB completed implementation of the following processes:

• A fully digital production workflow;
• An immersive sound experience for the NFB’s new screening theatre;
• A fully integrated system for managing our collection of digital assets (Media Asset Management system);
• Conservation of interactive works on the web: trailblazing work was completed with partner Rhizome, as the NFB managed to archive 95% of its collection of interactive works in WARC (Web ARChive file format);
• Office 365 collaboration tools; and,
• Production infrastructure technologies update at the new headquarters in Montreal.

The institution also began preparations for a 2020–2025 Technology Plan, which will be completed in January 2021.

In tandem with the NFB headquarters move to the Quartier des Spectacles, in November 2019 the NFB began to relocate the office spaces and equipment of the Conservation and Digitization unit (“the vaults”) to Cousens Street in Montreal. The technology infrastructure was implemented in winter, and with the partnership of software vendor Atempo and the creation of a highspeed fiber-optic link, the digital data exchange between this site and the new headquarters is now fully operational. The NFB also created an inventory of its artifacts and has scheduled their relocation to the new Cousens Street location in July 2020.

Gender-based analysis plus

At the NFB, the breadth and variety of our productions reflect the strengths and diversity of our teams. Created by artists and technicians who embody Canada’s diversity, including groups that are often under-represented, these works ensure that voices and stories from across the country get heard. This core responsibility was created to make Canadian content accessible and discoverable from anywhere in Canada, particularly in remote and/or underserved communities. In recent years, the NFB has adopted additional measures to support gender parity and minority-language communities and to redefine its relationship with Indigenous peoples, in terms of both audiovisual production and distribution. GBA+, of course, is integral to these measures.

Experimentation

Throughout 2019–2020, the NFB tested new distribution strategies for the launch of its works. The following examples demonstrate that these experiments were successful and confirm that Canadians consider NFB content to be relevant:

• The 13-episode webseries La Liste des choses qui existent (The Great List of Everything), produced by La Pastèque in co-production with the NFB and in collaboration with Télé-Québec, had a cross-platform launch. It was launched online on February 28, 2020, on NFB.ca, YouTube and SQAT (Télé-Québec). By March 31, it had received 11,000 views on YouTube and 26,000 views on NFB.ca. Six episodes were simultaneously made available on Facebook. To date, this project is considered one of the most successful online promotions of the year, having reached more than 900,000 viewers.
• Ramaillages (Gatherings), the six-episode NFB-produced documentary series by Moïse Marcoux-Chabot, was launched online on March 7 simultaneously with its world premiere at the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma (RVQC) in Montreal, with the director and some series participants in attendance at the screening. The film generated about 23,000 views on NFB.ca in the month of March.
• Le bonheur de Lucien, winner of the 10th edition of the Tremplin competition for emerging filmmakers, produced by the Francophonie Studio, was launched online on March 16, 2020, four days after the closure of schools in Quebec and New Brunswick. The film reached approximately 250,000 viewers on a variety of social media platforms and generated 9,000 views on NFB.ca
• After a world-premiere screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox, Five@50, a collection of five-minute shorts reflecting on contemporary LGBTQ2+ lives and identities, was launched on NFB.ca, Facebook and YouTube for free. The shorts were also posted on Xtra.com, which came on board as a national media partner. Within four weeks of the launch, the films had garnered a total of 25,000 views on NFB/ONF.ca, YouTube and Facebook.

Adapting to the needs of Canadians during the pandemic

• The NFB adapted quickly to meet the needs of Canadians during the global health crisis that began in March. Through its continued efforts to develop its digital offers, the organization was able to stay close and relevant to its audiences through a variety of channels and digital platforms. It focused on increasing the selection of its online releases by presenting a new documentary each week for free on NFB.ca and ONF.ca. This strategy resulted in almost 500,000 views on NFB.ca/ONF.ca during the month of March, nearly double the number of views generated during the same period in 2019. The strong performance of the NFB web properties, especially in the last quarter, proves that there is a great demand in Canada for NFB content.
• Over the last few years, the NFB has been successfully reaching and engaging with audiences beyond its own platforms (NFB.ca and ONF.ca) through third-party platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Amazon Prime. In 2019–2020, and particularly at the start of the pandemic, it began to expand its accessibility and audience reach through new agreements with niche online platforms such as Highball.TV, Doc-Air (DAFilms), Triple Squirrels – Evrgrn Channel, Eternal TV, Docubay, Tënk, Filmzie and Benshi. The results will be evaluated in 2020–2021.
• Throughout the month of March, the NFB continued working daily with its network of public libraries and communities across the country to develop creative alternatives that ensure NFB films reach our audiences via the Internet, and to support partners in planning virtual screenings and virtual post-screening discussions. The feedback from clients has been very positive. The offer has been adapted for 2020–2021.

Internal Services

Description

Internal Services are those groups of related activities and resources that the federal government considers to be services in support of programs and/or required to meet corporate obligations of an organization. Internal Services refers to the activities and resources of the 10 distinct service categories that support Program delivery in the organization, regardless of the Internal Services delivery model in a department. The 10 service categories are:

• Acquisition Management Services
• Communications Services
• Financial Management Services
• Human Resources Management Services
• Information Management Services
• Information Technology Services
• Legal Services
• Materiel Management Services
• Management and Oversight Services
• Real Property Management Services

Results: 

The NFB’s Internal Services support its two core responsibilities: audiovisual programming and production, and content accessibility and audience engagement. Here are the highlights for 2019–2020.

Destination: downtown

After more than 60 years in its building on Côte-de-Liesse Road in Montreal’s north end, the NFB moved its headquarters downtown, to the heart of the Quartier des Spectacles entertainment district. From early September to late October 2019, nearly 400 NFB employees began moving into their new headquarters building, which will serve as a national and international showcase for Canadian talent and know-how, an ideal space for innovation, and a meeting place for creators, staff, experts, artists and the public. 

As this report is being written, the only building facilities left to be completed are the screening room, the recording studio, the mixing studio and the public space, which will be delivered in 2020–2021. The NFB wants the official opening of its new headquarters building, public space and screening room to be a major event that draws a large audience, so we have postponed it in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This fall, the NFB also relocated its conservation room (which houses its visual archives), along with its digitization and conservation operations, to a new building in the Montreal borough of Saint-Laurent. It is at these facilities that the NFB will continue to concentrate its efforts to support production and distribution, so that the entire organization can operate within a completely digital ecosystem.

Thanks to extensive preparations, continued change-management activities by the Home Team and the 15 working committees, and weekly briefing sessions about these moves, they proceeded in a smooth, organized fashion.

Canada-wide consultation tour

From January to March 2020, the NFB Commissioner travelled across Canada to meet with members of the independent film community, in particular creators and producers of documentary and animated works. This consultation tour was organized in partnership with the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC), the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC), the Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec (ARRQ) and NFB/ONF Creation. The consultations were held in nine cities (Winnipeg, Edmonton, Regina, Vancouver, Toronto, Moncton, Halifax, St. John’s and Montreal), where over 400 people met to discuss two main topics: the NFB’s production spending and its relationship with the creative community.

The NFB: reflecting the richness and diversity of Canada

Diversity and inclusion are central to the NFB’s mandate and its institutional values. The diversity of Canadian society must be represented not only in front of the camera, but behind it as well. The NFB’s commitments to ensure gender parity and to redefine its relationship with Canada’s Indigenous peoples have yielded tangible positive results. The NFB’s achievements in this regard in its production activities are described in more detail under “Results” in the section of this report dealing with the core responsibility Audiovisual Programming and Production.

The NFB’s efforts to achieve gender parity within the organization have been recognized by Women in Governance, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of women in all spheres of society, which awarded the NFB its Platinum Parity Certification at its Annual Recognition Gala.

The NFB’s master plan on diversity and inclusion was supposed to be launched in 2019–2020, but several major institutional projects in the course of this year limited the organization’s capacities and hence delayed development of the plan, which is still under way. The events of the past year have also provided food for thought and motivated the organization to work with partners to develop approaches to data collection that treat the creative community respectfully and rely on its participation. The NFB must demonstrate leadership and create an environment conducive to inclusion and discussion.

It should be noted that this plan will be linked with, and will complement, the NFB’s 2016 commitments on gender parity, its 2017–2020 Indigenous Action Plan, its Employment Equity Plan and the recommendations made by its internal Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

The NFB’s 2020–2023 Official Languages Action Plan is scheduled for release in fall 2020.

The NFB: a constantly evolving organizational structure

In December 2019, the NFB announced the restructuring of its Creation and Innovation Division in order to build more bridges between its teams and ensure greater consistency and coherence in all the works it produces. All of the NFB’s studios have now been brought together under the umbrella of the English Program and the French Program. This new structure will enable better sharing of expertise and best practices in the production of documentaries, auteur animation and interactive and immersive works, while establishing a national vision and programming framework that reflect Canada’s linguistic duality.

As regards Human Resources, 2019–2020 saw the establishment of the advisory committee on quality of life and mental health in the workplace, which deployed recommendations regarding work-life balance through the organization’s teams.

Technological innovation: a central focus for the organization

As technology evolves rapidly and digital distribution platforms proliferate, the NFB must constantly adapt and innovate in its methods of producing audiovisual works, promoting them, and making them accessible to various audiences. In 2019–2020, the final year of its current five-year technology plan, the NFB began developing its new Technology Plan for 2020–2025 to maintain its role as a leading innovator.

The relocation of the NFB’s headquarters and conservation room provided the opportunity to lay the technological foundations for this new plan, which must facilitate remote collaboration on production, post-production and distribution activities, Canada-wide. The NFB projects that went into production right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic have allowed us to experiment with this remote collaboration, and the results have been very positive.

This year, the NFB also implemented a sophisticated technological infrastructure that enables us to link our MAM digital asset management system with our digital public viewing platforms. We used our Indigenous Cinema collection, accessible on NFB.ca, to test this new infrastructure on a small scale in 2019–2020, before expanding it to our entire collection in 2020–2021.

Regarding the implementation of the GCdocs document-management system, the NFB Archives team responsible for this project held several meetings with staff from Public Services and Procurement Canada before going further. But this team was also very busy with the relocation of the NFB’s offices, the items in its collection and its technical facilities, which slowed progress on this project.

Agility within the organization

One of the NFB’s priorities for 2019–2020 was to ensure that it is soundly managed and meets government requirements. In this regard, following the audit by the Office of the Comptroller General, the NFB continued to implement several components of its action plan and, in collaboration with this office, significantly improved its controls during the course of the year. In addition, to ensure that the NFB continues to conform to Treasury Board Secretariat standards, we updated some of our internal directives. We are still in the process of implementing a number of them, with the objective of completing this project in 2020–2021. The migration of our financial and material resource management systems to SAP continues to require many changes in our work methods. A special team has made numerous improvements in our work processes and has tackled the challenge of simplifying and optimizing our internal processes.

The “In It Together” project, which the NFB launched in 2016 to transform its organizational culture so that it will be more agile, creative and innovative in carrying out its mandate, continued in 2019–2020. Initially, work on this collective project had to be monitored closely to ensure that each of the 15 statements formulated by the NFB’s employees was implemented. But now, most of these statements have become an integral part of the organization and are taking concrete shape through various projects and activities.

One of the major projects that has involved the entire organization in recent years has been the implementation of the Office 365 suite of software tools for all NFB employees, Canada-wide. Designed to foster collaboration among employees wherever they are, this digital shift has enabled the NFB to continue its business activities despite the public-health measures requiring the closure of all non-essential enterprises throughout the country because of COVID-19. In the context of the pandemic, the NFB’s Information Technology and Research and Development teams have also worked to find viable, sustainable solutions to carry on distribution and production activities remotely.

The NFB received financing for the relocation of its headquarters in Montreal in the amount of $14.4 million, of which $7.4 million was received in 2018–2019 and $4.6 million was received in 2019–2020. The amount will be reimbursed via a reduction in the annual allocation to the NFB in the amount of $1.2 million every year for 12 years, starting in 2020–2021. The NFB also received funding to complete the migration of its financial and material resource management systems to the SAP platform ($1.8 million in 2017–2018 and $0.6M in 2018–2019, for a total of $2.4 million). Planned spending for 2020–2021 and upcoming years includes adjustments for statutory salary revisions as confirmed in the Annual Reference Level Update.

Expenditures by vote

For information on the NFB’s organizational voted and statutory expenditures, consult the Public Accounts of Canada 2019-2020.

Government of Canada spending and activities

The NFB’s financial statements (unaudited) for the year ended March 31, 2019, are available on the GC InfoBase.

Financial statements and financial statements highlights

Financial statements

The National Film Board’s financial statements (unaudited) for the year ended March 31, 2019, are available on the departmental website.

Financial statements highlights

Supplementary information

Corporate information

Organizational profile

Appropriate minister: The Honourable Steven Guilbeault, P.C., M.P., Minister of Canadian Heritage

Institutional head: Claude Joli-Coeur, Government Film Commissioner and Chairperson of the NFB

Ministerial portfolio: Canadian Heritage

Enabling instrument[s]: National Film Act, R.S.C., c. N-8

Year of incorporation / commencement: 1939

Other: The NFB Board of Trustees is composed of eight members: the Government Film Commissioner, who acts as the Board’s chairperson, the Executive Director of Telefilm Canada (ex-officio member) and six other members appointed by the Governor in Council. With the exception of the Commissioner and Executive Director of Telefilm Canada, Board members serve three-year terms. The Board’s primary role is to define the NFB’s broad strategic directions and monitor its results. It approves its strategic plans and budgets, among other items.

Raison d’être, mandate and role: who we are and what we do

“Raison d’être, mandate and role: who we are and what we do” is available on the NFB’s website.

For more information on the department’s organizational mandate letter commitments, see the Minister’s mandate letter.

Reporting framework

The National Film Board’s Departmental Results Framework and Program Inventory of record for 2019–2020 are shown below.

Graphical presentation of Departmental Results Framework and Program Inventory

Supporting information on the Program Inventory

Financial, human resources and performance information for the National Film Board’s Program Inventory is available in the GC InfoBase.

Supplementary information tables

The following supplementary information tables are available on the NFB’s website:

• Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy
• Gender-based analysis plus

Federal tax expenditures

The tax system can be used to achieve public policy objectives through the application of special measures such as low tax rates, exemptions, deductions, deferrals and credits. The Department of Finance Canada publishes cost estimates and projections for these measures each year in the Report on Federal Tax Expenditures. This report also provides detailed background information on tax expenditures, including descriptions, objectives, historical information and references to related federal spending programs. The tax measures presented in this report are the responsibility of the Minister of Finance.

Organizational contact information

National Film Board of Canada

National Film Board of Canada
1501 De Bleury Street
Montreal, Quebec H3A 0H3
Canada

Strategic Planning and Government relations

Email: reports@onf-nfb.gc.ca

Websites

www.nfb.ca

https://www.canada.ca/en/national-film-board.html

Social media

https://www.facebook.com/nfb.ca

http://www.twitter.com/thenfb/

https://vimeo.com/thenfb

https://www.youtube.com/user/nfb

https://www.instagram.com/onf_nfb/

Appendix: definitions

appropriation (crédit)
Any authority of Parliament to pay money out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

budgetary expenditures (dépenses budgétaires)
Operating and capital expenditures; transfer payments to other levels of government, organizations or individuals; and payments to Crown corporations.

core responsibility (responsabilité essentielle)
An enduring function or role performed by a department. The intentions of the department with respect to a core responsibility are reflected in one or more related departmental results that the department seeks to contribute to or influence.

Departmental Plan (plan ministériel)
A report on the plans and expected performance of an appropriated department over a 3 year period. Departmental Plans are usually tabled in Parliament each spring.

departmental priority (priorité)
A plan or project that a department has chosen to focus and report on during the planning period. Priorities represent the things that are most important or what must be done first to support the achievement of the desired departmental results.

departmental result (résultat ministériel)
A consequence or outcome that a department seeks to achieve. A departmental result is often outside departments’ immediate control, but it should be influenced by program-level outcomes.

departmental result indicator (indicateur de résultat ministériel)
A quantitative measure of progress on a departmental result.

departmental results framework (cadre ministériel des résultats)
A framework that connects the department’s core responsibilities to its departmental results and departmental result indicators.

Departmental Results Report (rapport sur les résultats ministériels)
A report on a department’s actual accomplishments against the plans, priorities and expected results set out in the corresponding Departmental Plan.

experimentation (expérimentation)
The conducting of activities that seek to first explore, then test and compare the effects and impacts of policies and interventions in order to inform evidence-based decision-making, and improve outcomes for Canadians, by learning what works, for whom and in what circumstances. Experimentation is related to, but distinct from innovation (the trying of new things), because it involves a rigorous comparison of results. For example, using a new website to communicate with Canadians can be an innovation; systematically testing the new website against existing outreach tools or an old website to see which one leads to more engagement, is experimentation.

full time equivalent (équivalent temps plein)
A measure of the extent to which an employee represents a full person year charge against a departmental budget. For a particular position, the full time equivalent figure is the ratio of number of hours the person actually works divided by the standard number of hours set out in the person’s collective agreement.

gender-based analysis plus (GBA+) (analyse comparative entre les sexes plus [ACS+])
An analytical process used to assess how diverse groups of women, men and gender-diverse people experience policies, programs and services based on multiple factors including race ethnicity, religion, age, and mental or physical disability.

government-wide priorities (priorités pangouvernementales)
For the purpose of the 2019–20 Departmental Results Report, those high-level themes outlining the government’s agenda in the 2019 Speech from the Throne, namely: Fighting climate change; Strengthening the Middle Class; Walking the road of reconciliation; Keeping Canadians safe and healthy; and Positioning Canada for success in an uncertain world.

horizontal initiative (initiative horizontale)
An initiative where two or more federal organizations are given funding to pursue a shared outcome, often linked to a government priority.

non budgetary expenditures (dépenses non budgétaires)
Net outlays and receipts related to loans, investments and advances, which change the composition of the financial assets of the Government of Canada.

performance (rendement)
What an organization did with its resources to achieve its results, how well those results compare to what the organization intended to achieve, and how well lessons learned have been identified.

performance indicator (indicateur de rendement)
A qualitative or quantitative means of measuring an output or outcome, with the intention of gauging the performance of an organization, program, policy or initiative respecting expected results.

performance reporting (production de rapports sur le rendement)
The process of communicating evidence based performance information. Performance reporting supports decision making, accountability and transparency.

plan (plan)
The articulation of strategic choices, which provides information on how an organization intends to achieve its priorities and associated results. Generally, a plan will explain the logic behind the strategies chosen and tend to focus on actions that lead to the expected result.

planned spending (dépenses prévues)
For Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports, planned spending refers to those amounts presented in Main Estimates.

A department is expected to be aware of the authorities that it has sought and received. The determination of planned spending is a departmental responsibility, and departments must be able to defend the expenditure and accrual numbers presented in their Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports.

program (programme)
Individual or groups of services, activities or combinations thereof that are managed together within the department and focus on a specific set of outputs, outcomes or service levels.

program inventory (répertoire des programmes)
Identifies all the department’s programs and describes how resources are organized to contribute to the department’s core responsibilities and results.

result (résultat)
A consequence attributed, in part, to an organization, policy, program or initiative. Results are not within the control of a single organization, policy, program or initiative; instead they are within the area of the organization’s influence.

statutory expenditures (dépenses législatives)
Expenditures that Parliament has approved through legislation other than appropriation acts. The legislation sets out the purpose of the expenditures and the terms and conditions under which they may be made.

target (cible)
A measurable performance or success level that an organization, program or initiative plans to achieve within a specified time period. Targets can be either quantitative or qualitative.

voted expenditures (dépenses votées)
Expenditures that Parliament approves annually through an appropriation act. The vote wording becomes the governing conditions under which these expenditures may be made.

Endnotes