The First Weekend Club has launched a campaign to raise funds for VOD (video-on-demand) distribution of Canadian films as a way to fight against the approximately 95% of Canadian box office revenues going to support American films (around 83%) and foreign films.  In fact, only about 3.4% of the national box office take in Canada actually goes to Canadian films.

The FWC is an organization dedicated to supporting Canadian films in cinemas in Canada to increase the screening dates and get butts in the seats!  You can join the FWC for free and receive updates on all the awesome films coming out of Canada.  Didn’t you know of the massive talent base that exists in Canada?  No wonder, the U.S. tends to drown them out.  What a coup this would be to have VOD distro for Canadian films!

Check out the indiegogo campaign with now 48 days left to go and about $18,000 left to raise. Do you love Canadian film?  Can you give?

Addendum

Just in the past two years, some of the films the First Weekend Club has supported which were directed by women or had a woman in the lead role include:

Act of God (dir. by Jennifer Baichwal)

Amazon Falls (dir. by Katrin Bowen)

Black Field (dir. by Danishka Esterhazy)

Daydream Nation (dir. by Michael Goldbach)

Faith, Fraud and Minimum Wage (dir. by George Mihalka)

Grown Up Movie Star (dir. by Adriana Maggs)

The High Cost of Living (dir. by Deborah Chow)

Modra (dir. by Ingrid Veninger)

Music from the Big House (dir. by Bruce McDonald)

A Touch of Grey (dir. by Sandra Feldman & Ian D. Mah)

Trigger (dir. by Bruce McDonald)

A Wake (dir. by Penelope Buitenhuis)

The Whistleblower (dir. by Larysa Kondracki)

The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom (dir. by Tara Johns)

Year of the Carnivore (dir. by Sook Yin Lee)