Atom Egoyan’s controversial thriller Where the Truth Lies was overshadowed at the Canadian box office over its opening week of Oct. 7, when Les Voleurs d’enfance, a Quebec documentary about abused children, grossed nearly $850,000 – more than double Truth’s take, while playing on fewer screens.

Ending a year of agony for sports fans, the National Hockey League opened its 2005/06 season to record ratings on TSN and CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada, demonstrating that the hockey faithful have not gone astray after last year’s season was wiped out by a labor dispute.

CTV’s newsroom drama The Eleventh Hour and CBC news magazine the fifth estate received 15 nods each, while Showcase’s popular Trailer Park Boys was not mentioned in the category it won last year, as the 2005 Gemini Awards nominations were announced on Oct. 11 on Global’s Entertainment Tonight Canada.

Alberta producers hope to double the level of production activity in their region over the next three years with the help of the provincial government.

After its success coproducing the series Robson Arms, Omni Film Productions already had the confidence of CTV when the net brought it on board for its newest comedy series, Alice, I Think. And the prodco has proven just as deft at forging smooth relationships with its creative collaborators as well.

With eyes toward the future, this year’s MIPCOM will have a special focus on the licensing and merchandising of mobile content. The annual TV market, running Oct. 17-21 in Cannes, France, will also feature its expected amount of wheeling and dealing.
While CHUM Television’s SVP of content Roma Khanna will be looking for edgy, genre-specific shows for her channels, she says she has huge expectations for a breakout year in mobile content, something the market has flirted with in the last couple of years.

David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence brought in a hearty US$8.2 million at the North American box office over the weekend of Sept. 30 – building on an already remarkable debut in limited release a week earlier, when the thriller brought in $230,000 at six theaters in Canada, for a per-theater average of $37,625.

Although CTV has some heavy hitters for the 2005/06 season, Global’s new season is generating big numbers in key markets and is slowly gaining ground on its rival. On the strength of new and returning shows such as House and Prison Break, Global managed to get five shows in BBM’s list of the top 20 for the week of Sept. 26 to Oct. 2, up from a mostly bottom-half three or four this time last year.

Halifax: Despite the pervasive shadow cast by the inaugural New Montreal FilmFest, the 25th Atlantic Film Festival was a success, according to executive director Gregor Ash.

While the Canadian Television Fund talks about a wedding date early in the new year for it and Telefilm Canada, there remain unresolved a number of details regarding how the newly consolidated TV funding system will operate.

Telefilm Canada has set an Oct. 25 application deadline for the third edition of its Spark Plug program, which provides support for minority filmmakers trying to get their television dramas off the ground.

Christal Films’ Familia had a big weekend Sept. 16-18. Not only did director Louise Archambault receive the prize for best first Canadian feature at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film also had a good opening weekend at the Quebec box office, bringing in $160,972 on 46 screens ­- one featuring English subtitles – for a per-screen average of about $3,500.