– Ideacom International will soon start shooting on To the Four Corners of the World, a 26 half-hour magazine series on global markets and trade. The program will go to air on Radio-Canada and TV5 International in early 1996 and on pbs in September ’96. Talks are underway with an English-Canadian broadcaster.

The program, which is being produced with support from the federal government, will look at the international sales and marketing efforts of mainly small and medium-sized Canadian and u.s. businesses and will go on the road once a month to profile a foreign business culture.

Ideacom president Jacques Nadeau says the tv series will anchor a larger multimedia program which will include radio, print and new information technologies. Product spin-offs promoting international trade will also be made available. Production begins in late November.

– The film adaptation of Laurel Ulrich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard is now being filmed at King’s Landing, n.b. with a mostly Canadian cast.

The film, which begins as a documentary and evolves into a drama, is directed by Richard Rogers and produced and written by Laurie Kahn-Leavitt. It is being funded by The National Endowment for the Humanities, the pbs series The American Experience and a number of other educational and cultural endowments. A Midwife’s Tale will be broadcast on pbs.

– Everest Entertainment has signed an exclusive deal with Orion Pictures for the theatrical distribution in Canada of at least 12 titles over the next three years. The first picture of the agreement is the documentary Theremin, An Electronic Odyssey.

– Another company is getting set to enter the direct-to-home satellite broadcasting fray. Star Choice Television Network, owned 100% by Direct Choice TV in the Maritimes, is getting set to file its application with the crtc by late November. Other partners in the venture include Eastwood Management in Vancouver and EchoStar Communications Corporation of Colorado.

– Herve Fischer, cofounder of Cite Espy Sans arts et des nouvelles technologies of Montreal, and Vincent Fischer, gm of Symbiose, a Canadian television sponsorship agency, have launched Science TV Distribution, a distribution and image bank company with access to 1,600 science films.

Science TV Distributions’ catalogue will be available on the Internet.

– JAMS Productions, producers of The Bubbie Break, a talk show geared towards grandparents, is branching out into children’s programming. The company will launch a series for children nine-14 at NATPE ’96 in Las Vegas.

– Sega Enterprises and CSK Corporation, the largest software development company in Japan, have announced the formation of Sega Soft Inc., a new company established to develop content for the Internet, multimedia pcs and Segas dedicated video game platforms such as Sega Saturn.

– The International Council of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences launched its own www site on Thursday, Nov. 16.

Located at //www.intlemmys. org/intlemmys on the Philips Media server, the site will feature news and information about the council’s first Worldwide Television Summit Conference and the International Emmy Gala Awards. It will also feature the 1995 nominees, information about past winners, rules, deadlines and details about the council’s activities and programs.

During the gala, users will be able to access an interactive guide which is provided to the audience in attendance containing photos, backgrounders and historical information.

– Three Canadian winners were among the 17th annual CableACE Craft and International Award winners. The other Cableace winners will be announced at two ceremonies in l.a. on Dec. 1 and 2. Atlantis picked up its 21st Cableace as Canadian director Stuart Gillard was named best director of a dramatic special or series for his work on the two-hour premiere episode of The Outer Limits. Pauline LeBel picked up the award for best writing in a children’s special or series for her work on The Song Spinner. The tv movie, produced by Alberta producer Doug MacLeod and directed by Randy Bradshaw, aired on Showtime. Lainey Keogh was the recipient of best costume design for Picture Windows: Two Nudes Bathing.

– The b.c. financing program that spawned Mina Shum’s critical success Double Happiness has awarded development money to two new screenplays. Premiere – funded jointly by British Columbia Film, Telefilm Canada and the nfb – chose Moo and Rupert’s Land from 59 submissions. Moo is an unconventional comedy of love and obsession adapted by screenwriter Sally Clark from her stage play. Rupert’s Land is a comedy-drama about two half-brothers who reconcile on a trip to their father’s funeral in Prince Rupert.

– Laurence Green was the only Canadian winner at the 38th International Leipziger Festival for documentaries and animation. His film Reconstruction won the Silver Dove for short footage. The award included an endowment of 9.000 DM.

– Hiroshima, the first production under the Canada/Japan coproduction agreement, has captured the Grand Prize for best 1995 television production at the WorldFest – Charleston International Film Festival in Charleston, sc.

Hiroshima dramatizes the events leading up to the dropping of the A-bomb and was produced by Telescene Communications of Montreal in association with Daiei and Cine Bazaar, both of Tokyo.

The series was directed by Roger Spottiswoode and aired on Showtime and Radio-Canada.

– The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada handed out awards to 33 songwriters and composers and 26 music publishers at its annual awards celebration. Jim Morgan, Ray Parker and Tom Szczesniak were presented with the socan award in the category of music for film and television.

– Murray Ord is Calgary’s new director, film services. Appointed Nov. 9 by the Calgary Economic Development Authority, Ord has 20 years experience in features, television and commercial production. Ord’s new job is part of a restructuring intended to assist the growth of Calgary’s film industry.

– Neil Gordon has been appointed to the position of director, Astral Multimedia. Before joining Astral Entertainment Group, Gordon was director of operations with Matrox Graphics, a designer and manufacturer of video cards for pcs.

Astral Multimedia’s first title, Man in the Sea, is being published and distributed by MediaToon.