Film group rebrands, pushes to revitalize industry

The organization that represents the filmmakers on P.E.I. has changed its name, is looking at a new location, and is making plans for recently announced government support for the industry.

The Island Media Arts Cooperative has changed its name to FilmPEI as the first part of rebranding exercise. The group is looking to make the most of a new focus on film in the provincial government's cultural strategy.

The cultural strategy, announced in November, includes a new Film Media Fund. FilmPEI has set a goal is to leverage that fund into $3 million to $5 million worth of film production on the Island over the next three years.

"There's going to be new programming coming in in the new fiscal year to support emerging and established filmmakers," said FilmPEI president Emma Fugate.

"The other thing is to provide resources for those producers on the Island who are already here, to be able to partner with producers off Island, to be able to access crew and equipment and location databases, so there's a lot of industry support that hasn't been here before because we haven't had much of an industry. And now we're looking to grow that."

The organization has turned to crowdfunding to raise $10,000 to help it rebrand and move to a new, bigger location in the West Royalty Industrial Park. The space will include a production studio, sound booth, animation studio, editing suite and event space.

Fugate said FilmPEI is expecting there will be as least one feature and a web series produced on P.E.I. this year.

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