Activities Report > 2005-2006 Activities Report >

Diffusion and Distribution

Documentary’s presence on TV is not proportional to its cultural and educational value. Aside from Télé-Québec, rare are the public or private channels that offer privileged time slots to feature-length documentaries. In general, these time slots should be increased in amount and duration; documentaries should be appropriately promoted and framed (interviews with the filmmakers, debates).

Regarding distribution, in May 2005 the NFB announced at Cannes that an agreement had been reached between the NFB, SODEC and Digiscreen. This agreement envisioned the creation of a digital distribution network of 25 venues in Quebec and 25 more in the rest of Canada. However, nothing has happened since.

2005-2006

The Documentary Network met with Michèle Fortin, the new President of Télé-Québec, in order to create links and reflect together on ways to improve the documentary production and diffusion conditions.

A delegation from the Documentary Network (Manon Barbeau, Monique Simard, Nathalie Barton and Lucette Lupien) met with Sylvain Lafrance, new Vice-President of Radio-Canada. This meeting intended to state the necessity of making room for feature-length documentaries, and to request that Zone Libre’s actual show time be increased from 44:30 minutes to the international standard of 52 minutes.

CBC’s new orientation was articulated as “fewer and bigger documentaries”; which leaves us to believe that there will be a privileged place for “prestigious” TV series but probably not for auteur or point of view documentaries.

The Documentary Network believes that documentary’s presence in the movie theatres is of great importance. And so, not only do we work to improve programs in this sense; we also support the creation of a network of digital movie theatres.

2006-2007

The Documentary Network will continue meeting with the main broadcasters, particularly with CBC’s Vice-President Mr. Richard Stursberg to remind him that public TV should remain supportive of auteur and point of view documentaries.