Alliance Atlantis Communications’ senior executive vice-president and chief financial officer, W. Judson Martin, will leave the company by September, citing health reasons.

Christal Films’ La Vie avec mon père lost some ground in its third week out – its per-theater average slipping to $2,481 from $4,906 the week before – but had no trouble hanging on to the number-one spot at the Canadian box office despite competition from the English Canada release of Mémoires affectives and the much-anticipated Saint Ralph.

A sad reality of English-Canadian cinema has been that most domestic productions, vying against Hollywood fare, end up getting play on only one or two screens in the major markets. The smaller markets, meanwhile, traditionally would never get a chance to see these films theatrically, and as for foreign distribution, forget it.

Broadcaster Bob McAdorey died Feb. 5 in Toronto after a long illness. He was 69.

On Feb. 4, producers and broadcasters from France will descend on Toronto for a two-day conference with their Canadian confrères. Organized by the French consulate and the Sunny Side of the Doc festival of Marseille, the invitation-only rendezvous aims to improve documentary efforts between the two countries and will feature 170-plus professionals from Canal+, France2, CBC, CTV, Telefilm Canada and others.

Entertainment lawyers Stephen Stohn and Ron Hay made additions to their Toronto firm last month with new partners Diana Cafazzo and Sandra Richmond. The expanded outfit – now Stohn Hay Cafazzo Dembroski Richmond LLP – is repositioning itself to cover more areas of media law. It added music lawyer Steven Ehrlick and media/sports lawyer David Dembroski in 2003.

Barry Farrell is an editor at Smash Editorial, Toronto….