Tokyo – The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on October 27 to serve as the basis for future collaboration. Signed in Tokyo by Government Film Commissioner NFB Commissioner Tom Perlmutter and Shigeo Fukuchi, president of NHK, in the presence of the Canadian Ambassador to Japan, Jonathan Fried, this latest agreement builds on the successes of a 2003 MOU, which had brought the two organizations together to collaborate on innovative and socially relevant co-production projects. “This MOU represents something radically new in the world of international co-productions and partnerships,” said Perlmutter. “We are moving away from a traditional co-production model to one where we come together to establish a creative laboratory that can take the programming risks that are not possible in the normal course of business. We are extending the NFB model of prototyping and testing new ways of creation, often with new technologies, into the international sphere.”