A small group of Canadians made the journey to the festival. Here’s a selected Canuck delegatography:

* Carol Ann Davidson and John Panikkar, representing the largest buyer of documentary programs in Canada – Discovery Channel Canada – are spending $20 million next year.

* Toronto’s J. Gary Gladman of Marquee Film Company is launching the 13-episode series Danger in the Sea. He raised the $1.6-million budget from Discovery Canada, presales to Network Nine in Australia, TV3 in New Zealand and RTE in Ireland, and with the assistance of the Cable Production Fund and the Ontario tax credit.

* Albert Karvonen of Karvonen Films, at the festival for the fourth time, was selling Mountain Splendor, a one-hour special; a Treasures of the Wild series about flatland, boreal forest, pond and desert habitats; and a Wild Encounters series about the grizzly bear, moose, caribou and cougar. He is producing five more shows for Wild Encounters about the polar bear, rocky mountain goat, coyote and weasel.

Karvonen had several associates with him from Edmonton, ‘so they can see what they’re up against and pick up some pointers.’ He was accompanied by his son Downy, a sound recordist, Doug McCann, a sound mixer, Sandra Tober, an editor, and veteran dop Doug Steele.

* Regina’s Don Copeman of Camera West Film Associates is coproducing a film about endangered sea ducks called Seasons of the Eider with cinematographer Bob Long, who has worked on this film for six years and requires two more years to complete it. They have raised most of their $450,000 budget from the National Film Board, Discovery Canada, SaskFilm, SCN, Knowledge Network and the Cable Production Fund. Copeman hopes to raise about $80,000 from an international buyer.

* Toronto-based Paula Salvador was at the festival to finalize coproductions with several countries for a new documentary series called Reign of the Animals. It is about the evolution of animals and will be comprised of two one-hour programs. Due to expensive animation costs, the budget is us$450,000 per hour.

* Vancouver’s Christian Bruyere of Omni Film Productions is launching a new series entitled Champions of the Wild which profiles Canadians around the world who are working with wildlife. The show travels to places such as Borneo to study orangutans, China to study pandas and Rwanda to study mountain gorillas. Each film takes two weeks to shoot and is budgeted at $160,000. The show has licences with Discovery Canada and Canadian broadcasters including ATV, CFCF, and the Knowledge Network. It is distributed in the U.S. by Water Street Releasing and overseas by European Images International. Bruyere said, ‘Canadians are sick and tired of everybody else coming to Canada and doing wildlife films when we should be doing our own films – since we have so many animals.’