April 3, 2019 – (Toronto/Montreal) The Independent Production Fund and its 40-member Pre-Selection Committees have selected 20 short-form series proposals which are now eligible to advance to the next phase of the application process and apply for Production Financing. These include 14 projects in English and 6 in French. Three web series previously funded by the IPF achieved certain milestones of success and are eligible to apply for second seasons.

The IPF received 160 proposals for web series funding from across Canada. Applications included a 2-minute proof-of-concept trailer, creative material, audience engagement strategy and the team for key creative positions. The members of the Pre-Selection Committees who are industry professionals and advanced media students, reviewed, scored and discussed the projects in order to select the short-listed projects.

Producers of these selected projects are now invited to submit complete Production Applications to the IPF by May 1, 2019. An international jury will evaluate the proposals and make recommendations to the Board of Directors of the IPF who will announce final funding decisions in June.

The trailers for all the projects submitted were viewed online during the month of March by hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts who have watched, liked, shared and commented on the content. Avid fans of the IPF trailers can see what a challenge the evaluators had! “Short-listed or not, these productions have already developed fan-bases and the creators have learned a lot from the analytics and audience feedback to the content they posted online”, noted Andra Sheffer, CEO of the IPF. “That information is invaluable to producers and is one of the exciting advantages of creating content for digital platforms and online audiences”.

In 2019, the IPF celebrates a decade of funding dramatic short form web series. The IPF has invested $15M in the production of 131 web series in the past 10 years. It invests $1.5 – $2M annually in 10-15 projects. These series represent all demographics and genres, including comedy, sci-fi, horror, animation, thrillers – and can be accessed at www.ipf.ca/webseries.

Thanks to all our evaluators for undertaking this selection challenge and sharing their insights and viewing experiences.

LIST OF SHORT-LISTED PROJECTS:

LIST OF PREVIOUSLY FUNDED PROJECTS ELIGIBLE TO APPLY FOR A SUBSEQUENT SEASON:

The IPF is incorporated as a charitable foundation with an endowment valued at $35M. It uses the interest generated by the endowment and return on its project investments for its annual operations and project funding. In addition, it is certified by the CRTC as a Certified Independent Production Fund and is eligible to receive Broadcast Distribution Undertaking contributions. Cogeco Connexion contributes $1.9M annually to the IPF to administer the Cogeco Television Production Program for investment in dramatic television series. The Board of Directors of the IPF is composed of independent representatives from the industry and undertakes all final funding decisions.