The NFB's commitment to gender parity: strong results in budget and number of films directed by women, with goals met or exceeded in most creative positions.

March 4, 2022 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

On the eve of International Women’s Day, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is continuing to meet its gender-parity goals, both for the number of productions directed by women and for production budgets allocated to women—six years after making its initial commitment.

The NFB has announced that 60% of all ongoing projects at the NFB (307) were directed by women or by teams with equal or greater representation of women than men. Notably, 66% of production spending was also allocated to productions led by women.*

The NFB met or surpassed goals for gender parity in three of four key creative functions: screenwriting (58%), editing (50%) and music composition (57%). In addition, 42% of productions were shot by women cinematographers, a significant increase over previous years, when the figure had been below 20%.

Beginning this year, the NFB is also reporting gender-parity data by genre. The NFB has achieved parity in all three production sectors—animation, documentary and interactive—both for the number of productions directed by women and for production budgets allocated to women.

In the coming weeks, the NFB will be implementing a new mechanism to allow creators to self-identify, in order to be able to respectfully work towards increasing the representation of creators and collaborators from equity-seeking groups. The Self-Identification Questionnaire will be launched in April 2022 and will comply with the framework of the Privacy Act for the collection of personal data.

*Preliminary data as of February 17, 2022, for works in all phases of production during the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022.

Quote:

“The NFB has shown that it is committed to achieving gender parity in its productions. We look forward to deepening this work, and ensuring that parity is intersectional and supports the representation of Black, Indigenous, racialized and LGBTQ2+ women, both as directors and among the creative teams that support them.”

– Julie Roy, Director General, Innovation and Creation

At a glance:

2021–2022 results*:

GENDER PARITY AT THE NFB

ONGOING PROJECTS | 2021-2022
Women | 60%
Men | 40%

EXPENDITURES OF ONGOING PROJECTS | 2021-2022
Women | 66%
Men | 34%

CREATIVE POSITIONS FOR COMPLETED PRODUCTIONS

SCREENWRITING | 2021-2022
Women | 58%
Men | 38%

EDITING | 2021-2022
Women | 50%
Men | 50%

CINEMATOGRAPHY | 2021-2022
Women | 42%
Men | 53%

MUSIC | 2021-2022
Women | 57%
Men | 43%

GENDER PARITY BY GENRE

ONGOING PROJECTS | 2021-2022
ANIMATION (70)
Women | 60%
Men | 40%

EXPENDITURES OF ONGOING PROJECTS | 2021-2022
ANIMATION
Women | 76%
Men | 24%

ONGOING PROJECTS | 2021-2022
DOCUMENTARY (180)
Women | 62%
Men | 38%

EXPENDITURES OF ONGOING PROJECTS | 2021-2022
DOCUMENTARY
Women | 59%
Men | 41%

ONGOING PROJECTS | 2021-2022
INTERACTIVE/IMMERSIVE/INSTALLATION (57)
Women | 56%
Men | 44%

EXPENDITURES OF ONGOING PROJECTS | 2021-2022
INTERACTIVE/IMMERSIVE/INSTALLATION
Women | 77%
Men | 23%

*Here and throughout this release: the term “women” is used as a category denoting: 1) projects directed entirely by a woman or a team of women; or 2) teams with equal or greater representation of women than men (i.e., 50% or more). In a few cases the numbers don’t add up to 100%, due to the fact that some records have not been coded.

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