Telefilm Canada enables access to Canadian content on iTunes

In honour of Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017, Telefilm Canada has curated a collection of Canadian feature films exclusively for iTunes, available at itunes.com/canadafirst.

The selection will showcase 150 Canadian movies released between 2005 and 2016.

The Canada First branded iTunes destination makes these films available and identifies them as Canadian, therefore improving perceptions of domestic film production while also increasing discoverability and digital access for all Canadians.

“Canadian cinema is renowned for its quality and originality, and Telefilm Canada is committed to forging partnerships and finding new ways to enable audiences, no matter where they are, to discover our cinema and talent,” said Carolle Brabant, Executive Director of Telefilm Canada.

Telefilm will fund the digitization, dubbing and sub-titling of the selection therefore making all the titles gradually available in both official languages during 2017.

For the first selection round when building the Canada First collection, we selected Canadian films that were already available on iTunes and that had achieved success in various areas including box-office, gross sales and festival selections.

As this initiative expands, Telefilm hopes this platform will increasingly reflect the industry’s commitment to achieve a balanced production portfolio that underlines gender parity, cultural diversity and Indigenous communities. Representatives from these groups are invited to contact sr@telefilm.ca to get more details on how to get their production on iTunes and how to submit films to the Canada First collection.

Canada First, an audience-focused strategy
Launched by Telefilm and the industry in 2016, Canada First is a national promotional campaign developed to drive consumer awareness for Canada’s screen production. The campaign targets, in particular, “Super Consumers”—viewers who watch at least one movie and TV series a week.