*Discreet Logic plots expansion

An estimated $240 million in direct investments, tax credits and government program incentives is being earmarked to expand operations at Montreal-based visual effects producer Discreet Logic. The funding will be used to expand Discreet’s r&d and production over the next five years.

Discreet currently employs 350, with the expansion project designed to create an additional 600 jobs over the period.

Quebec Finance Minister Bernard Landry’s office says the expansion program’s Quebec benefits include $2.8 million from the make-work faire program, $16 million in refundable multimedia production tax credits, plus an additional $14 million in technological transfer subsidies.

Last month, Discreet announced its Flame visual effects system had become available on the Silicon Graphics Octane workstation. A spokesperson for the company says the development means Flame becomes accessible to a wider range of users and provides for better interactivity with other Discreet visual effects systems including Inferno and Flint.

Sales for Discreet, traded on the nasdaq stock exchange in the u.s., were $140 million in 1997.

*EKHAYA follow-up

Toronto’s Inner City Films is in development on 10 episodes of EKHAYA: The Missing Years, a follow-up to the critically acclaimed EKHAYA: A Family Chronicle, which was recognized as the first official Canada/South Africa coproduction at the signing of the coproduction treaty in Cape Town this month.

The initial series aired on cbc last spring and reached number one in South Africa’s tv ratings. The follow-up is to be coproduced by Inner City, cbc, South African Broadcasting Corporation and Kurira Films International. The sabc has formally committed to financing a substantial portion of the production’s costs. Inner City principals Alfons and Amos Adetuyi are currently awaiting confirmation regarding cbc’s licensing of the new series.