NFB's flickers of life

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(DALE CUMMINGS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

The National Film Board, now 71 years old, is an anomaly in Canadian culture. A producer of quietly innovative documentary and animated films, it flowered into an international force two generations ago, on the strength of such talents as John Grierson and Norman McLaren. It was a time when only a handful of Canadians (English Canadians, at least) could get a novel published or a pop song played on the radio, never mind a feature film into theatres.

Today, North Americans are watching documentaries like never before, thanks to such mainstream successes as Bowling for Columbine and March of the Penguins. Animated features from the likes of Disney and Pixar regularly top movie box-office charts. Meanwhile, Canadian writers and pop musicians attract international attention. But the NFB has fallen off the radar, the victim of the digital revolution and the 500-channel universe.

The Montreal-based organization's latest commissioner, Tom Perlmutter, wants to turn the ship around. To promote the NFB's recent initiatives, and perhaps to justify its annual parliamentary appropriation of $65 million, He is on a cross-country tour to meet audiences, filmmakers and opinion makers. He told the Free Press editorial board on Thursday that the NFB has taken steps since its last restructuring in 2007 to join the 21st century.

Much of the NFB's back catalogue of 13,000 films (which have won 5,000 awards, including several Oscars), has been digitized and placed online at nfb.ca. The films can be streamed free of charge onto computers, cellphones and iPads. As well, producers have been commissioning new work, such as Katerina Cizek's reality-based film Out the Window, which, Mr. Perlmutter says, employs "spatial" and "interactive" techniques that will alter film syntax as much as "montage" or editing did almost 100 years ago.

Despite Mr. Perlmutter's sense of assurance, the NFB clearly has a hard row to hoe. Its budget was cut by 30 per cent in 1996 and has not been restored. Its corporate culture has been ponderous and resistant to change, "a lesbian communist daycare centre for people of colour," according to a right-wing Albertan quoted in a 2009 article in The Walrus magazine.

Winnipeg's recent experience with the NFB also requires skepticism. The regional office here now reports to an office in Edmonton. In the '70s and '80s, Winnipeg produced a stream of respected NFB contributors, among them Elise Swerhone, Halya Kuchmij, John Paskievich and Richard Condie. The last man standing appears to be The Cat Came Back animator Cordell Barker.

Yet Winnipeg cannot and should not reject change. Mr. Perlmutter brandishes figures to show that the NFB's online presence has been a success: to date more than six million viewings across the various digital platforms. Its iPhone app, launched in 2009, made iTunes' Top 10 list that year. Some 40 per cent of online viewers watch whole NFB films, against an industry average of five and 10 per cent.The NFB knows full well that it cannot expect public subsidy if it attempts to ape commercial entertainment. Its niche is the social-issue and experimental subjects no one else can tackle. The value of continuing to fill this niche at considerable cost is uncertain. But it will not be the government that decides if the NFB lives or dies. It will be the audience.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 26, 2010 A16