• Geremi Adam, the Montreal man a judge sent to jail for movie piracy, has died. The 27-year-old man, once billed by the FBI as one of the most prolific pirates in North America, was found in his Montreal-area home on April 4, according to reports. The cause of death has not been determined. Adam was sentenced last month to two-and-a-half months for recording and distributing pirated movies over the Internet. He was released shortly thereafter, owing to time already served.

• Jennifer Hill, Emmy- and Gemini-winning producer of The Backyardigans, has been tapped to produce an animated Star Wars sitcom. The Lucasfilm project will be directed by Todd Grimes, with Seth Green and Matthew Senreich of Robot Chicken as creative consultants.

• Eva Markvoort, the young woman whose fight with cystic fibrosis was recounted in the doc 65_RedRoses, succumbed to the illness late last month. She was 25. Markvoort, a University of Victoria student and former Miss New Westminster, chronicled her struggles with the disease in a blog before becoming the toast of the festival circuit last year on the strength of the film from directors Philip Lyall and Nimisha Mukerji and Force Four Entertainment.

• Kaleidoscope Entertainment and The Fremantle Corporation are working on a new series based on the Smoke books — by Tanya Huff of the Blood novels and the resulting Blood Ties show. Smoke & Mirrors will follow a 400-year-old vampire who works as a creative consultant on a TV show based on one of his books.

• Pam Mollica is the new director of communications at TIFF. The veteran publicist, fresh from a senior post at Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, has also worked at Canwest, Alliance Atlantis and the NFB.

• The Score and CBC have stuck a deal on the 2010 FIFA World Cup, handing the sportscaster access to extended highlights of each match.

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Markvoort photo: Linda Dawn Hammond