*AAC broadcasts for the blind

Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting will air an episode of Due South on Showcase that will be catered to the visually impaired. The episode, to air on Dec. 28, will feature a service known as Open Described Video, where the show’s dialogue, score and sound effects will be interwoven with a full narrative description of the action taking place on screen.

*TIFF’s Film Circuit gets new sponsors

the Toronto International Film Festival Group’s Film Circuit can now depend on the support of new sponsors Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution and the Ontario Trillium Foundation. The TIFF Group says the support of the companies will help the Film Circuit to better provide underserviced Ontario communities with Canadian and independent films.

*Sprockets announces deadline for kids’ films

The Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children will be taking submissions for its third edition up until Dec. 17. Sprockets is a film festival geared primarily for children ages four to 14 and features nine days of domestic and international film. The next Sprockets festival runs April 8-16, 2000.

Sprockets also features a behind-the-scenes film workshop for kids and offers a school program with support materials for teachers.

Sprockets is sponsored by Bell Canada, with the Toronto Community Foundation and Telefilm Canada.

*INIS students win Bourses Lauzon ’99

louis-Charles Dionne and Jean-Pascal Morneau, third-year directing students at Institut national de l’image et du son, the advanced film studies school in Montreal, have been awarded $5,000 Bourses Lauzon grants. The grants are awarded by Telefilm Canada in association with inis’ Claude-Jutra Fondation in memory of filmmaker Jean-Claude Lauzon.

The grants cover tuition fees for students in their third year in the inis directing cycle. Since 1996, inis has accepted more than 50 full-time students into its directing, scriptwriting and production programs.

*Termite Art hits the Great Streets

l.a.-based Termite Art Productions, the non-fiction division of Lions Gate Television, is producing a five-part miniseries, Great Streets.

The series, which will air on pbs next season, takes viewers on strolls down some of the most intriguing boulevards and avenues of the world.

Termite Art has also inked deals with VH-1 to produce eight one-hour episodes of VH1 Confidential to air next season on VH1 as well as The Learning Channel as two one-hour specials.

*Empire Theatres grows

empire Theatres has expanded its Empire Cinemas Bayers Lake multiplex in Halifax with five new state of the art screens, bringing seat capacity to 3,800 in front of 18 screens.

The complex ranks as the highest grossing theatre in Atlantic Canada and is the largest cinema complex east of Toronto, according to Dean Leland, Empire Theatres’ marketing director.

The exhibitor is also set to unveil a new 12-screen venue in St. John’s, Nfld. Dec. 10.

A market leader in motion picture exhibition in Atlantic Canada, Empire Theatres will have 18 cinema complexes with 118 screens by year end, including the Empire Imax Theatre, the region’s only Imax installation.

The operation is 100% Canadian-owned with locations in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, p.e.i. and Newfoundland.