The growth of Manitoba’s film industry has sparked a new partnership aimed at further developing film professionals in the province. Film Training Manitoba announced Tuesday it is joining forces with the Canadian Society for Cinematographers (CSC) to launch the first CSC Hub in the Prairies. “We can actually, by partnering with the CSC, extend a greater level of programming in our own community to grow our industry,” said Adam Smoluk, the executive director of Film Training Manitoba. “It’s a combination of sharing business intelligence, but also investment here in Manitoba. So it’s a great thing for our film industry.” The CSC was founded in 1957 and was designed to help teach and develop cinematography at all levels. It currently has three hubs across the country—Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Winnipeg’s hub will be housed in the Film Training Manitoba building, which will give people the ability to access all the resources they could need under one roof. “I think that this puts us in a position where we’re going to be able to accelerate the development of our local crew members, our cinematographers, and this level of support, investment, sharing business intel is going to put us in an excellent position so we can work more collaboratively with our national partner, but also with our local crew members.” Smoluk said they plan on doing a number of workshops with prominent cinematographers so their knowledge can be shared with industry locals. To kick off the partnership, Film Training Manitoba is bringing in Iris Ng, who is known for her cinematography work in documentaries. Smoluk said this announcement has sparked a lot of excitement in the film community, and the workshop for Ng this weekend has sold out. “We’re pretty thrilled to see the uptick right away.”
