+ Montreal’s EyeSteelFilm was the big winner at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, garnering the VPRO prize for best feature-length film for its latest release, Last Train Home. The debut film by Lixin Fan, who was associate producer on EyeSteel’s previous Chinese doc success Up the Yangtze, had its European premiere at IDFA. The film was also selected for Sundance.

+ Maple Pictures says it set a personal record with its release of Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire. The Oscar buzz-maker grossed $57,300 in its opening weekend at Toronto’s art-house Varsity Cinemas, according to the distributor, making it the highest per-print gross in the company’s four-year history.

+ Christmas came early for E1 Entertainment, which clocked in $11.2 million in ticket sales on the strength of New Moon. The three-day figures put the sequel in second place for the largest opening weekend ever in Canada – trailing only Warner Brothers’ The Dark Knight – making good on high expectations for the film. Vancouver-shot New Moon more than doubled the opening weekend for the franchise opener Twilight, which generated $5.6 million in 2008.

– The Twilight franchise, however, is said to be leaving Canada, according to an unguarded remark by star Robert Pattinson and a report in The Globe and Mail. Pattinson told mtv.com that the fourth film in the saga, Breaking Dawn, will ditch B.C. in favor of Portland, Oregon, a blow to the service industry and teen girls alike that was echoed by an unnamed source in the Globe.