(June 23, 2016 – Vancouver, BC) On Monday of this week, the The National Film Board of Canada’s leadership role in women’s filmmaking was recognized when the Women in Film & Television Vancouver (WIFTV) presented one of its “Spotlight Awards” to NFB chairperson Claude Joli-Coeur and filmmaker Mina Shum (pictured above).
Claude Joli-Coeur, Government Film Commissioner and NFB Chairperson since November 2014, received the Please Adjust Your Set Award, which “honours a person or organization that has made a major contribution to promote gender equality in film, television or screen based media.” This award follows a new NFB policy announced by Joli-Coeur in Vancouver on March 8, International Women’s Day. Already an industry leader in gender equality, the NFB will now ensure that at least half of its productions will be directed by women and half of all production spending will be allocated to films directed by women.
Vancouver based NFB filmmaker Mina Shum was given WIFV’s Artistic Achievement Award, honouring a screen-based media artist who has created an outstanding recent work or a significant body of work. Shum’s stellar career includes a pair of acclaimed NFB features: her feature directorial debut Double Happiness (1994), an NFB co-production which won both the Special Jury Citation for Best Canadian Feature Film and the Toronto Metro Media Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival, as well as her latest work, the NFB feature documentary Ninth Floor, named to Canada’s Top Ten for 2015 by TIFF.
The Spotlight Awards have been presented by WIFTV since 1999 to celebrate the outstanding achievements of BC women and people who’ve made a difference in the province’s film and television sector. A full list of the 2016 award winners is available online.
