Canada’s Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault met with South Asian filmmakers and artists, including filmmaker R. Paul Dhillon, in a meeting organised by MP Ken Hardie and his team - Kamron Bajwa and Paul Singh Mann. It was a great discussion with the Minister and he listened attentively to the many ideas shared by the participants. Guilbeault has been zooming with many BIPOC and other filmmaker groups about the future of film-TV and arts funding as major funding organizations like Telefilm and Canadian Media Fund (CMF) shift from giving most of the “easy money” to established fat-cat producers to a more equitable dole out to filmmakers and producers, especially underfunded racialized filmmakers. The Minister emphasized the same message that things need to change. He heard from a diverse group of BC based producers, writers, actors and others involved in showcasing the arts, all of whom stressed that funding needs to be allocated to BPOC and diverse stories for all platforms. Now who actually gets the funding is another question as even with increased funding, there are many things you need to get right in your proposal, your creative material and team to be successful. So it’s an important step to have funding available but now Diverse creatives have to up their game to get the results. No Hand Outs - just strive for the best and hope your number comes up!