Festival du nouveau cinema celebrates ‘The Body Remembers’ and more

The 48th Festival du nouveau cinema de Montreal has come to a close with titles like The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open and The Twentieth Century picking up prizes. Kathleen Hepburn and Elle-Máijá Tailfeather’s Canada/Norway copro, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (pictured), which was recently acquired by Netflix for the U.S., walked away with the Montreal festival’s Grand Prix in the National Competition – Features section. Meanwhile, Matthew Rankin’s The Twentieth Century, which won TIFF’s Best Canadian Feature Film Award, scored the Prix de la diffusion Quebecor.

In addition, in the National Competition – Short Films category, Emilie Mannering’s short film Jarvik scored the public choice prize and Aaron Poole’s Oracle picked up the Grand Prix. Theodore Ushev’s The Physics of Sorrow, which made its world premiere at TIFF this September alongside Jarvik and Oracle, also won the Prix National Dada. Finally, director/producer Kayla Fragman’s Ilha da rainha received the Grand Priza and Devon Pennick-Reilly’s Surface Tension picked up the Hope Award from the festival’s recontres pancanadiennes du cinema etudiant.

Blue Ant International unveils new deals with NHK, Fox Networks Group Japan

Blue Ant International has secured a raft of new deals with Japan’s NHK and Fox Networks Group Japan. The country’s national broadcaster, NHK, has licensed three titles from the Blue Ant Media-owned distribution arm, including: Turtle Beach (1 x 60 minutes, Renegade Pictures and Merit Entertainment), UFOs: The Lost Evidence (1 x 60 minutes, Megalomedia) and Rooted (1 x 60 minutes, Rooted Media). Turtle Beach tracks turtles’ nesting behaviours, while UFOs from Megalomedia explores if human contact with these phenomena is more far reaching than imagined and finally, Rooted showcases five of South Africa’s most iconic trees and the animals that have created their own roots around them. Fox Networks Group Japan has also secured a new license for Blue (1 x 60 minutes, Blue Ant Studios-owned Northern Pictures) and license renewals for season one of Undiscovered Vistas (8 x 60 minutes, Blue Ant Studios) and Great Blue Wild (6 x 60 minutes, Blue Ant Studios). The cable and satellite network has also renewed its license for season one of Land of Gremlins (3 x 60 minutes, Off The Fence) and Coastal Africa (4 x 60 minutes, Off The Fence).

Media Ranch launches second edition of Horsepower

The second edition of Montreal producer and distributor Media Ranch’s French-Canadian TV format incubator Horsepower is officially underway. Introduced at MIPCOM last week, the initiative, which was unveiled last October, sees six to eight participants develop exportable unscripted TV formats. Quebecor Content, which served as Media Ranch’s partner on the incubator last year is currently co-developing winner An Tran’s Family Tripped with Media Ranch. Submissions from candidates from all business sectors are now open until Nov. 15, 2019. Finalists will start the six-month program this January.