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2004-2005 Action Plan

During 2004-2005, the Network will continue to hold regular meetings of its Board of Directors in order to strengthen consensus among the organizations and enrich debate on documentary. Through these meetings, it will define its priorities and develop specific action plans in response to current events.

The Network will also continue to meet with the main institutions and urge them to implement the following priorities:

• Adequate funding for documentary, in terms of both the public institutions and the broadcasters;
• The presence of flexible prime-time television slots dedicated to documentary, as well as the protection of budgets allocated by the government to public broadcasters and by these broadcasters to documentary;
• The triggering of funding for documentary features by distributors, in support of theatrical releases of documentaries;
• The study and financing of parallel distribution networks favourable to documentary, such as digital distribution;
• And the definition of genres, particularly in regard to the confusion between documentary, especially docu-soap, and reality television.

The Network will develop an approach to the private broadcasters, distributors, and film exhibitors.

The Network plans to participate in the follow-up committee to the NFB/Telefilm Summit on Documentary in order to build consensus among the institutions and associations on the formulation of a documentary policy. Since March 2004, the Network has sat on the “documentary” steering committee of the Cultural Human Resources Council of Canada, on the issue of training documentary filmmakers. The committee will report in fall 2004.

The Network also plans to organize and raise the funding of Forum 2004, to be held during the 2004 Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal.

With the goal of improving communications to its members, the Network plans to seek special funding to allow it to publish quarterly newsletters in both official languages as well as background papers and issue documents.

The Network will continue to seek new sources of funding with the aim of achieving financial stability as quickly as possible. Lastly, the Network will remain vigilant and intends to act responsively on the urgent issues and situations that arise during 2004-2005.