Kate Vollum is the latest producer to join the Ontario Studio of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Executive producer Chanda Chevannes announced the appointment today via a release from the NFB. The appointment process included an external independent filmmaker, who was director Yung Chang (Up the Yangtze).
“I’m thrilled to welcome Kate Vollum as the Ontario Studio’s newest producer. Kate has been a valued member of the NFB team for 16 years, during which time she has contributed to many of the Studio’s most acclaimed and innovative projects,” said Chevannes in a statement from the NFB. “Her passion for championing filmmakers’ voices and her deeply collaborative approach will benefit both the NFB and the wider documentary community. I am grateful to have the opportunity to work alongside Kate in her new role as Producer at the Ontario Studio.”
Vollum worked her way up through the NFB after starting at the Mediatheque in Toronto in 2007, leading educational workshops before becoming a production coordinator. Her NFB credits during that time include Sarah Polley’s shape-shifting study of family secrets, Stories We Tell; Charles Officer’s look at Toronto’s Villaways community, Unarmed Verses; and Chelsea McMullan’s portrait of musician Rae Spoon, My Prairie Home.
She then served served as an associate producer at the Board’s Ontario Studio. Vollum’s credits include Kat Cizek’s landmark interactive work Highrise, along with the series Souvenir, which saw filmmakers including Caroline Monnet, Jeff Barnaby, and Kent Monkman repurpose films from the NFB archive to frame Indigenous stories anew. She also worked on the short doc series Otherly, which brought non-fiction filmmaking to Instagram stories to share tales of belonging through social media. Her portfolio with the Board speaks to a body of work that explores new terrain in visual storytelling while democratizing the form in terms of the voices behind the camera.
As an associate producer, Vollum’s NFB credits include Michelle Shephard’s journalism doc The Perfect Story, Brian D. Johnson’s artisanal inquiry The Colour of Ink, and Yung Chang’s Robert Fisk doc This Is Not a Movie. Vollum collaborated with Chelsea McMullan again on their Tanya Tagaq documentary Ever Deadly, which was just released online via the NFB.
