Phyllis Yaffe appointed Canada’s consul general in NYC
Former CEO of Alliance Atlantis Communications Phyllis Yaffe has been appointed to the role of Canada’s consul general in New York. Yaffe was one of 26 diplomatic appointments announced Tuesday by Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion. A current board member at William F. White and Blue Ant Media, Yaffe is also the chair of the board of directors of Cineplex Entertainment and lead director on the board of Torstar Corporation. Yaffe is replacing the outgoing consul John Prato and will begin her new role in September.

BravoFACT partners with CIFF for short film competition
Bell Media’s BravoFACT has partnered with the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) to launch a $50,000 short film festival competition. The Calgary International Film Festival BravoFACT Pitch Contest will see five filmmaking teams from Alberta pitch their short film ideas to a live audience and jury at CIFF on Oct. 1. The winning team will receive $50,000 from BraveFACT to fund their project and the winner will be announced at the CIFF Awards Brunch on Oct. 2.

Air Canada enRoute Film Festival reveals lineup
The Air Canada enRoute Film Festival has revealed its 20-project lineup for 2016.The selected projects include Breath of Life (from filmmaker Fiona Cleary), In Season (Sydney Boniface), Roadside Deadguys (Christopher Lorenz), Some Other Place (Haya Waseem) and Bound (Daniel Boos). All of the short films will be available on Air Canada flights from Aug. 1 to Dec. 31, 2016 with passengers also being encouraged to vote for their favourite short film to win the People’s Choice Award. From the 20 films, a jury consisting of Patricia Rozema, Sarah Gadon, Stephen Dunn, Jason Priestley, Karine Vanasse, Jennifer Baichwal, Chris Landreth and Caitlin Durlak will select winners in the categories of Best Short Film, Achievement in Direction, Achievement in Cinematography, Achievement in Animation, and Achievement in Documentary. The winner in the Best Short Film category will also receive $5,000 courtesy of the competition’s presenting sponsor, Cineplex.

SOCAN acquires Audiam
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) has acquired 100% of New York-based music royalty collection agency Audiam. Audiam locates metadata for sound recordings, determines licensing status of those recordings and helps recover past revenues owed to songwriters and music publishers. The acquisition allows SOCAN, which represents more than 4 million Canadian and international music creators and publishers, to expand its remit to the collection of royalties for reproductions of music, licensing and royalty distribution in both the U.S. and Canada. “Audiam enables music creators and music publishers to be paid accurately, while removing liability, infringement and data issues for streaming music services and YouTube,” states the release.

IMAX releases Q2 financials
IMAX has reported revenues of USD $91.7 million for the second quarter of 2016. In Q2, the gross box office from IMAX DMR titles was USD $260.8 million, compared with USD $343 million in the same period in 2015. The company did note that last year’s Q2 gross box office was the highest-grossing quarter in the company’s history due to titles such as Furious 7, Jurassic World, and Avengers: Age of Ultron. IMAX installed 38 new theatres during the quarter, and signed deals for 95 theatres.

OIAF adds mentorship, development deal to Pitch THIS! 
The upcoming Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) is providing a development deal and mentorship opportunities as part of its Pitch THIS! competition, in partnership with Corus Entertainment and Corus-owned animation software company Toon Boom. For the first time, the fest will select 10 pitches and pair the creators with industry mentors who will assist them in developing their ideas. The pitches will take place on Sept. 21 during the event’s industry stream TAC (The Animation Conference) in front of a select panel of experts. From this group, two finalists will be picked to present their concept at the official Pitch THIS! event on Sept. 22 in front of a panel of broadcasters and a TAC audience of more than 300 potential industry buyers. The grand prize includes a development deal with Corus and Toon Boom animation software licenses for Harmony and Storybook Pro, plus training.

Image: Shutterstock

With files from Jeremy Dickson