Mar 21, 2023

This year marks the 3rd year anniversary of the Montreal-based auteur-driven platform

Toronto, ON, March 21, 2023 - Montreal-based, not-for-profit documentary platform Tënk, currently celebrating its 3rd year anniversary, has announced its expansion into English Canada coinciding with a fundraising campaign to raise 20K through subscriptions. Run by Florence Lamothe, Co-Director and General Manager and Naomie Décarie-Daigneault, Co-Director and Artistic Director, and curated by a diverse list of esteemed filmmakers, critics, and programmers, Tënk brings the best in contemporary and classic auteur-driven documentaries. With over 40 films on SVOD and 350 films on VOD, current films on the platform include the award-winning No Ordinary Man by Chase Joynt and Aisling Chin-Yee’s, Still Processing by Sophy Romvari, and a retrospective of icon Allan King’s best works. For more information visit tenk.ca.

“In 2018, Naomie and I, who were both already heavily involved in the documentary world, traveled to France to visit the Tënk organization, who are known leaders in their field in Europe. We came away completely inspired,” said Florence Lamothe, General Manager. “We decided to bring together our individual forces and follow the French model for Canada, with a focus in the Quebec market to start. Now that we are 3 years in, we are ready to push the platform out to the rest of Canada and bring the best in documentaries to new viewers.”

“Canada is known for its wealth of documentary filmmakers and we are so proud to be able to showcase Canadian auteurs alongside their international peers,” said Naomie Décarie-Daigneault, Artistic Director. “Never has there been a time in which the documentary genre has been more necessary to tell important stories from around the world. We are all struggling to understand the numerous issues that face humanity, and documentary films offer a meaningful way to educate, transform and inspire people. We feel it's imperative to make these films as accessible as possible to all Canadians.”

Since its inception in 2020, Tënk has streamed over 850 titles, with nearly 400 of those being Canadian. Each week, 5 films are added to the lineup ensuring viewers have fresh and current options. The platform screens the best from high profile film festivals including Visions du Réel, Locarno International Film Festival, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, RIDM (Montreal International Film Festival) and has curated retrospectives on some of the best documentarians in the world including: Chris Marker, Robert Kramer, Nicolas Philibert, Artavazd Pelechian, Chantal Akerman, Patricio Guzman, Sofia Bohdanowicz, Agnès Varda,
Danae Elon, Allan King, among others.

As a solidarity cooperative and subscription-based documentary streaming platform, Tënk services both the industry through its membership for documentarians across Canada as well as the public through its rigorous and meticulous curation of the best documentary films available. In Canada, industry members have a role in the strategic decision-making of the organization, while the curation rests in the hands of the programming team. Tënk allows the industry professionals and organizations to be directly involved so that the decisions taken reflect a common vision.

Tënk offers different levels of subscription for the public from $10/month to $100/year. As part of the subscription, viewers have access to approximately 40 documentaries which are made available for a 2 month window, with 5 films added weekly. Once out of the SVOD catalog, most films remain available for rental (over 350 titles), at the cost of $3 for 48 hours. The Tenk platform can be accessed through PC, tablet, smartphone, Apple TV, Android TV.

About Tënk Canada

Tënk.ca is a solidarity cooperative and subscription-based documentary streaming platform available online across Canada. The not-for-profit was launched in Quebec in early 2020 by a team of enthusiasts and documentary professionals. Tënk is a year-round film festival whose mission is to renew the way we look at the world through the broadcast of strong and unique films. Tënk was first created in Lussas, France, in what is affectionately known as The Documentary Village. With the arrival of Tënk in Canada, a real network is being created to properly represent the interests of its growing members, and to ensure the broadcasting of the best of documentary cinema.