Of the five dramatic features from debut directors in this year’s Perspective Canada, only two are gritty, urban dramas, while the other three are – get this – comedies! To those who said Men with Brooms wouldn’t change anything, TIFF lightheartedly presents Peter O’Brian’s Hollywood North, Anita McGee’s The Bread Maker and Sudz Sutherland’s Love, Sex and Eating the Bones to complement the seriousness of Jacob Tierney’s Twist and Nathaniel Geary’s On the Corner.

* Director: Vincenzo Natali * Writers: Andrew Miller and Andrew Lowery * Producer: Steve Hoban * Cinematographer: Derek Rogers * Diary by: Dustin Dinoff

Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg will duke it out yet again for the Directors Guild of Canada’s best achievement in directing honor, but not if Wiebke von Carolsfeld and Mario Azzopardi have anything to say about it. The nominees for this and all of the other DGC awards were announced Aug. 14 in Toronto. Egoyan is nominated for Ararat; Cronenberg for Spider; von Carolsfeld for Marion Bridge and Azzopardi for Savage Messiah.

Terms for a new contract between Canada’s actors and producers have been made public.

The Atlantic Film Festival is gearing up for its 23rd edition, running Sept. 12-20 in Halifax, and this year its coproduction program, Strategic Partners, will focus on production opportunities between Canada and the U.S., U.K. and Republic of Ireland.

Regina’s Verite Films is currently in preproduction on a new series called Renegade Press, a youth-aimed dramatic series for a whole whack of broadcasters. The series is about five teenagers who volunteer for Internet newspaper RenegadePress.com, and each episode is based on events that face or have faced the age group.
‘We follow our characters as they investigate teen life from within youth subculture,’ says cocreator/executive producer Virginia Thompson. ‘They usually end up learning more than they bargain for, and a lot about themselves.’

The Canadian Cable Television Association has postponed its September Cable Summit until next year.

St. John’s, NF-based Anita McGee’s The Bread Maker has the distinction of being the only East Coast feature film to make it into the Perspective Canada program at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The Bread Maker is producer/director McGee’s first feature, which makes the selection even sweeter.

There’s good news and bad news for Salter Street Films’ This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The good news is that 22 Minutes will go ahead for the 2003/04 season thanks to a ‘creative financing’ effort by broadcaster CBC and Alliance Atlantis Communications (Salter’s parent outfit). The bad news is costar Colin Mochrie won’t be returning with it.

Telefilm Canada has restored its portion of funding to the Ottawa International Animation Festival for next year’s event after stating it would pull its financial support to the fest indefinitely.

The Canadian Cable Television Association and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters have reason to feel confident about their lawsuit against several alleged illegal satellite dealers in Ontario and Quebec. The organizations, along with Quebec’s Videotron, have been aided in their cause by a recent pre-trial ruling by Judge Judith Snider ordering the seizure of satellite reception equipment and access cards from certain defendants.

The 28th Toronto International Film Festival will open on Sept. 4 with Denys Arcand’s Les Invasions Barbares.