* In its first week of operation, the Cable Production Fund has committed over half a million dollars of its first annual budget of $40 million. The four projects that have been approved are: Footnotes, a Sound Venture and Frank Augustyn Productions documentary series for Bravo!; VideoTheme’s drama series, Parents malgre tout, which will air on Television Quatre Saisons; Voices of Silence, a Bishari Films documentary for tvontario, and the Great North documentary Jasper – A Harlequin Romance for Discovery Channel.

* Sullivan Entertainment has signed a multimillion dollar deal to sell over 650 hours of programming to Asian markets including season seven of Road to Avonlea to nhk in Japan and over 70 hours of programming to Chinese Central Television.

* TekWar, the Atlantis Communications futuristic series, has hit the Pentagon. Seems Mr. William James, air force director of architectures, technology and interopability, likes the series’ cyberspace sequences so much he asked for a vhs copy to show air force generals Also at Atlantis, the Cologne Conference, running this year from June 16-21 in Germany, has named the Atlantis tv movie Harrison Bergeron as one of the top 10 award winners.

* In order to better pursue film, tv and interactive media development projects, The Second City Entertainment has opened an office in l.a. Matti Leshem, vp of tv and film development, will head up the new office.

Some tv projects in the works: SCTV Two: The World’s First Interactive Network, a series currently in development with WIC Western International Communications; Love, Sex, and Other Natural Disasters, a special with Catalyst Entertainment for cbc; and RVTV – Mobile and Wired, a series with Turner Broadcasting and wic.

As well, The Second City plans to reapply to the crtc for a 24-hour specialty channel devoted to comedy, The Second City Comedy Channel.

* Alliance Communications and Electronic Arts have inked a deal to create interactive software games based on the tv series ReBoot.

* Toronto-based production house Devine Entertainment has sold six one-hour episodes of the Composers Specials to Home Box Office. As well, Devine has inked a worldwide video deal for the specials with Sony Classical and a worldwide record deal with New York’s Sony Music International.

* Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is making the trek from Hollywood to North York to introduce a benefit screening of Charlie Chaplin’s classic silent film, The Gold Rush. The screening, which celebrates 100 years of cinema, will be held at the George Weston Recital Hall at the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts on June 1. The North York Symphony will perform composer/conductor Carl Davis’ adaptation of the original score.

The performance is expected to raise over $200,000 for the Canadian Film Centre.

* Astral Communications and European private TV network TF1 have formalized a programming development partnership. The deal includes creation of animation series, documentaries and dramatic programming, exclusive Canadian distribution of TF1’s programming library by Astral, joint acquisition of animation programming for worldwide distribution, as well new ventures such as multimedia and music publishing.