François N. Macerola

François N. Macerola (January 31, 1942 – November 8, 2018) was a Canadian lawyer and film executive. He held a number of senior positions with the National Film Board of Canada and Telefilm Canada.

Early life Macerola was born in Montreal, Quebec. He studied at the Université de Montréal, gaining his BA degree there in 1963, and then becoming a Bachelor of Civil Law in 1970. During this time, he tried to make sure that the predominantly freelance film-makers of the French Program could not claim the status of permanent employees, which helped to save the NFB money, as more salaried employees would mean less budget available for actual film production.

In April 1979, he was promoted to the position of assistant film commissioner, making him James de Beaujeu Domville's deputy in the running of the NFB. Domville stepped down from his role in January 1984 and Macerola succeeded him, initially on an interim basis but from May 1984 as the official new Government Film Commissioner. One of his first tasks as commissioner was to develop a new five-year plan for the future of the NFB, after Minister of Communications Francis Fox tasked the organisation with becoming "a world centre of excellence in production of films and videos" and "a national training and research centre in the art and technique of film and video". Macerola refused to withdraw the film from circulation, although a caption was later added to the start of it to clarify that it was a drama-documentary and not a pure documentary. In 1991 he left Lavalin to take up a position as vice president of the board of directors of the film company Malofilm Distribution Limited. In this position he was mainly responsible for safeguarding the circus's intellectual property rights.

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