A spokesperson for Elevation Pictures, Canadian distributor for Matt Johnson’s Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, has confirmed to Playback Daily that U.S. prodco and distributor Neon has acquired the worldwide rights to the film.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (pictured) is produced by Zapruder Film’s Matthew Miller and Matt Greyson and co-written by Johnson and Jay McCarrol.

The film, spun off from the series that first aired on Viceland and then CBC, follows fictionalized versions of Johnson and McCarrol as they are somehow transported back to 2008 after attempting to book a show at Toronto’s Rivoli venue, despite having never written or recorded a song. It had its world premiere earlier this month at the South by Southwest Film and Television Festival in Austin as part of the Midnighter selection.

Blue Ant

Blue Ant’s Race Against the Tide has scored its first international commission with the BBC signing on for a U.K. edition.

BBC Factual and BBC Scotland have co-commissioned a U.K. version of the competition format from Blue Ant Studios.

Beginning production in Scotland in May, the six-part series will be hosted by Iain Stirling and will see eight teams hitting the beach to compete against both each other and Mother Nature, as they work to create magnificent sand sculptures in between the tide going out to when it comes crashing back, six hours later.

The series will be produced by Glasgow-headquartered Tern TV as part of the company’s push into the entertainment format space. The Race Against the Tide format was originally created for CBC by Marblemedia, which subsequently merged with Blue Ant in the summer of 2023.

Race Against the Tide was commissioned for BBC Two and BBC Scotland by Catherine Catton, head of commissioning, factual entertainment and events; Louise Thornton, head of multiplatform commissioning, BBC Scotland; and Steve Allen, commissioning executive, BBC Scotland. Blue Ant Studios oversees global distribution for the format and all versions of the series.

Little Engine Moving Pictures

Toronto-based producer and distributor Little Engine Moving Pictures has secured a raft of international TV and digital platform deals.

For the U.S. and Latin America, Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network (HITN) has picked up Imagine Create Media’s I Love, the first season of Little Engine’s Cutie Pugs and two seasons of Now You Know, produced in partnershp with Sinking Ship, in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.

Meanwhile, TVOKids, along with the Knowledge Network, has commissioned a second season of Little Engine’s animated preschool series Tiny and Tall. Florida-based, Spanish-language network V-me has picked up both Tiny and Tall and I Love along with renewing Cutie Pugs in Spanish.

Outside of North America and LatAm, South Korea’s Daekyo Kids has renewed Cutie Pugs for Korean. Rounding out the deals is SuperRTL, which has licensed I Love for Germany while Australia’s ABC has renewed Imagine Create Media’s astronomy series Space Kids.

Ballinran Entertainment

Exclusion: Beyond the Silence, a documentary on the lasting impact of Canada’s Chinese Exclusion Act from Stratford Ont.-based Ballinran Entertainment, will be screening at Cineplex locations across the country as part of Asian Heritage Month.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923 prohibited Chinese immigration to Canada. It was preceded by 1885’s Chinese Immigration Act, which imposed a $50 head tax on any Chinese immigrants to Canada. The act was repealed in 1947, following the Second World War.

Directed by Keira Loughran, the feature documentary follows Loughran and Helen Lee as they investigate the legacies of their grandmothers, who fought for reunification of Chinese-Canadian families. The film will screen at up to 30 Cineplex locations on May 2, 3 and 7.

Exclusion is produced by Ballinran Entertainment’s Craig Thompson, in association with Toronto’s White Pine Pictures, with the participation of Telus, Knowledge Network, Rogers OMNI, Yes TV, the Canada Media Fund, and the Rogers Documentary Fund along with federal and Ontario tax credits.

Omnifilm Entertainment

Vancouver-based Omnifilm Entertainment has partnered with Radar, the digital distribution arm of Australian prodco WTFN, to launch a dedicated YouTube channel for the Omnifilm series Jade Fever.

The unscripted series follows the Bunces, a family of jade miners in Northern B.C. The series aired for seven seasons on Discovery Channel Canada from 2015 to 2021.

“We are delighted to bring Jade Fever into our growing stable of single IP YouTube channels,” said WTFN CCO Derek Dyson in a statement. “It has everything you need for a successful series on YouTube: great talent, hidden treasure, dramatic moments and big machines! We are excited to now share
this fabulous series with the world.”

With files from Realscreen

Image courtesy of Elevation Pictures