Two Canadian series are among 16 titles selected for the Berlinale Series Market, which identifies series with high market potential, according to the Berlin International Film Festival. The domestic selections are Club illico and TVA’s À propos d’Antoine (About Antoine), produced and distributed by Montreal’s ComediHa!, and Hallmark Channel’s The Way Home (pictured), produced by Toronto’s Neshama Entertainment and Hallmark Media in association with MarVista Entertainment, with Hallmark Media handling distribution.

Meanwhile, Zoé Pelchat’s short film Gaby les collines, about a 13-year-old girl coping with the changes that come with puberty, will world premiere in the Generation Kplus program.

Also added to the Generation program is Aziz Zoromba’s Simo, which will have its European premiere in Generation 14plus. Simo won the IMDbPro Short Cuts Award for Best Canadian Film at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and is set to make its international premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this month. Berlinale runs from Feb. 16 to 26.

Sarah Polley and Norm Macdonald snag Critics Choice awards

A pair of Canadians were among the winners at the 28th annual Critics Choice awards.

Filmmaker Sarah Polley won Best Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking. The 2022 feature drama, based on Canadian author Miriam Toews’s novel of the same name, chronicles eight women from an isolated Mennonite colony grappling with the revelation that the men in their community were drugging and sexually assaulting the women at night. It is produced by Plan B Entertainment, Hear/Say Productions and Orion Pictures, and distributed by United Artists Releasing and Universal Pictures outside of the U.S.

Norm Macdonald was posthumously awarded with Best Comedy Special for his Netflix comedy Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special (Irwin Entertainment), which he directed and executive produced. The special includes Macdonald’s stand-up as well as a roundtable discussion in which the late comedian’s friends and colleagues discuss his life and career.

Annie Awards unveil nominees 

The Annie Awards announced the nominations for its 50th iteration, with a number of Canadian projects making the cut.

Charlotte (January Films, Balthazar Productions, Walking the Dog), the animated film directed by Éric Warin and Tahir Rana and chronicling German Jewish painter Charlotte Salomon during the mid-1930s, has been nominated for Best Indie Feature. Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis’s The Flying Sailor, the National Film Board of Canada-produced short about a sailor blasted skyward in the 1917 Halifax explosion, has been nominated for Best Short Subject.

Netflix’s Karma’s World (9 Story Media Group) is a contender for Best Editorial – TV/Media for its episode “Keys, The Inventor.” Jason Loftus’ documentary Eternal Spring, covering the hijacking of a Chinese state TV signal by banned group Falun Gong, is up for Best Writing – Feature. Also nominated in the category is Disney and Pixar’s Turning Red, directed by Canadian Domee Shi and set in Toronto. The film is up for seven awards in total, including Best Feature.

DNEG bring on Adriano Rinaldi as GM

VFX and animation studio DNEG has hired Adriano Rinaldi as the GM of its Vancouver studio.

Rinaldi will be in charge of DNEG Vancouver’s day-to-day operations, including its Oscar-and BAFTA-winning work on Quebec director Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. He’ll also manage DNEG’s 600 employees and work with the company’s global senior management team on wider initiatives, according to a news release.

Rinaldi was previously senior manager and a creative supervisor serving as VFX Supervisor for Scanline on Marvel Studios’ Eternals, and worked with director Dante Lam as on-set VFX supervisor on The Rescue. Prior to Scanline, Rinaldi was head of creative operations for MPC Vancouver, where he helped build the company’s Vancouver presence and contributed to the design and development of workflow improvements, company processes and procedures, according to a new release.

RBC renews commitment to the MVP Project until 2025

RBC and the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television have announced the extension of the Music Video Production (MVP) Project, which provides funding for emerging Canadian musicians and filmmakers to create and produce music videos, until 2025.

Round nine of the program has awarded grants to 10 diverse artist teams from a variety of musical genres and filmmaking styles, with round 10 to be announced in the coming months. To date, RBCxMusic and the Prism Prize has awarded 97 grants to emerging artists resulting in the creation of 71 music videos, and surpassed $1 million in funding this past July, according to a news release. 

The recipients include recording artists Alaskan Tapes with director Andrew De Zen and producer Adam Maruniak; Casey MQ with director Harry Cepka and producer Emily Rice Hillgren; DACEY with director Kevin Jin Kwan Kim, and producer Daniel Lin; Evan Redsky with director Adrijan Assoufi, and producer Jackie De Niverville; KIANA with director Sina Dolati, and Producer Shaghayegh Haghdoust; Korea Town Acid with director Yú, and producer Lina Li; Neela with director Purusha Anokhei, and producer Arri Dee; Radiant Baby with director Catherine White, and producer Gabriel Roussil; SULLY with directors Alim Sabir and Okay Mojo, and producer Michael Ren; and recording artist and director Wild Black with directors Director Sara Jade Alfaro, and producer Yasmin Evering-Kerr.

Sundance Institute announces 2023 Screenwriters Lab and Screenwriters Intensive fellows 

Utah-based non-profit Sundance Institute has selected Lebanese-Canadian Dania Bdeir’s debut feature, Pigeon Wars, for one the 12 projects in its 2023 Screenwriters Lab.

Bdeir (Warsha), along with co-writer Bane Fakih (Assil and Jad, Vibes) and the other creatives selected, attended the Sundance Mountain Resort from January 14 to 18 to develop their projects with artistic director Jessie Nelson, along with creative advisors Ritesh Batra, Linda Yvette Chávez, Scott Frank, Phil Hay, Eliza Hittman, Attica Locke, Walter Mosley, Marti Noxon, Nicole Perlman, Howard Rodman, Dana Stevens, Joan Tewkesbury, Lulu Wang, Bill Wheeler, Tyger Williams, Virgil Williams and Doug Wright, according to the Sundance website.

Pigeon Wars explores A fictional young woman’s bid to break into the male-dominated pigeon industry in Beirut after befriending the like-minded Hassan as a political crisis threatens the country. It is produced by Sahar Yousefi for Canadian prodco Nava Projects in association with Pierre Sarraf for Beirut’s Né à Beyrouth Films.

Image courtesy of Hallmark Media