Markham Street Films

Toronto’s Markham Street Films has optioned the film and TV rights to Naben Ruthnum’s Your Life is Mine (pictured). Written under his pseudonym Nathan Ripley, the novel follows an up-and-coming filmmaker whose notorious cult leader father’s legacy comes back to haunt her.

Ruthnum is set to pen the screenplay alongside Level 16 writer/director Danishka Esterhazy. The deal was negotiated by Markham Street Films’ Judy Holm with the Transatlantic Agency’s Samantha Haywood in association with Stephanie Sinclair.

Previously, eOne announced it had added Ruthnum’s debut thriller Find You in the Dark to its development slate, tapping Patrick Tarr (Cardinal) as showrunner.

Intuitive Pictures

Ina Fichman from Montreal’s Intuitive Pictures has optioned the film and TV rights to Judy Rebick’s memoir Heroes in My Head. The book follows Rebick as she details the story of the 11 personalities she created to help her cope with childhood sexual abuse. The deal was negotiated by Fichman with Samantha Haywood from the Transatlantic Agency. Fichman is a past recipient of the Hot Docs Don Haig Award, a prize that honours outstanding Canadian producers.

Guru Studio

Toronto-based prodco Guru Studio has signed new broadcast deals for the first two seasons of its flagship preschool series True and the Rainbow Kingdom. Globosat Gloob (Brazil), Discovery Frisbee (Italy), RTS (Switzerland), DR Ramasjang (Denmark), E-Junior (UAE), Star Channel (Greece), TVB (Hong Kong) and HOP (Israel) all picked up the comedy adventure series.

True and the Rainbow Kingdom premiered globally on Netflix in 2017 and the first two seasons of the show were picked up by CBC Kids last year. The show is produced by Guru Studio in collaboration with Pharrell Williams’ i am OTHER label, as well as fine arts collective FriendsWithYou and animation studio Home Plate Entertainment. New episodes, seasonal specials, comedic shorts, music videos and songs will all roll out for the show throughout 2019 and 2020.

Gusto Worldwide Media

Ottawa’s Gusto Worldwide Media has inked a deal to launch Gusto TV on AVOD platform Freebie TV in the U.S. Currently, Freebie TV is available to U.S. audiences on Roku. The channel is expected to launch on the platform soon, offering audiences over 70 hours of content from the food-focused company. Most recently, Gusto TV celebrated its one-year anniversary in Singapore, where is is available on pay-TV operator StarHub TV and StarHub’s OTT service StarHub Go.

Comedy Dynamics

L.A.-based independent comedy production and distribution company Comedy Dynamics has acquired the worldwide distribution rights to comedy special Please Notice Me. Starring Canadian comedian Kim McVicar, the special will feature a combination of stand up and dance numbers as it follows McVicar’s story from Toronto Raptors’ dancer to stand up comedian. The project, which is set to go into production in January 2020, will be produced by McVicar alongside Quentin Lee through his L.A.-based Margin Films banner.

 With files from Kidscreen