A three-minute standing ovation for The Rocket, by Charles Binamé, closed the National Screen Institute’s FilmExchange festival on March 4 in Winnipeg, kicking off the NSI’s 20th anniversary year.

Vancouver: Love and Other Dilemmas, a new $1-million feature from Clarity Films, under the single-purpose banner Perfect Day Pictures, will go to camera on March 22 after four years of gearing up.

Vancouver; Jamie Kennedy (Son of the Mask) stars in Kickin’ it Old Skool, from L.A.-based Yari Film Group and service producer Network Entertainment, which began filming on March 20.

Kelly Senecal says his CTV primetime soap Whistler needs a needle-drop soundtrack to deliver a ‘different kind of energy’ than a traditional musical score.

Despite a strong medal haul for Canada, the CBC’s Winter Olympics coverage achieved only half the viewers in primetime as it did with the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City. Although the Ceeb’s live afternoon broadcasts were up 14% over Salt Lake, the mostly recap and tape-delayed coverage in the evenings paled in comparison to what rival nets offered.

Halifax – Bicoastal U.S. production house Crossroads Films is currently shooting its new feature Snow Angels in Halifax under the direction of David Gordon Green (Undertow). Adapted for the big screen by Green from the novel by Stewart O’Nan, Angels is a family drama about a small-town waitress and her difficulties with an estranged husband. Kate Beckinsale (Underworld), Sam Rockwell (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), Michael Angarano (Sky High) and Amy Sedaris (Bewitched) star, with Dan Lindau, Paul Miller (A Love Song for Bobby Long) and Lisa Muskat (Crude) producing. Derrick Tseng (Palindromes) is coproducer. The film is scheduled to wrap in mid-March. No distributors are attached as yet.

Halifax: Producer Camelia Frieberg (Wilby Wonderful, The Sweet Hereafter) is directing her first feature, the drama A Stone’s Throw, through Palpable Productions, her Halifax-based prodco, and Acuity Pictures, also of Halifax, under the banner of Smooth Stone Productions.

Vancouver: Insight Film Studios is in production on its first feature film, When a Man Falls in a Forest, starring Sharon Stone, who is also aboard as executive producer.

Vancouver – Mainframe Entertainment is gearing up for its first theatrical animated feature, Escape from Planet Earth. The Vancouver toonco, which has animated several direct-to-video features (Inspector Gadget’s Biggest Caper Ever, Casper’s Haunted Christmas), is one of the producers and will animate the film.

Vancouver – Animation house Studio B Productions is partnering with Oscarwinning animators Alison Snowden and David Fine (Bob’s Birthday) to produce Ricky Sprocket – Showbiz Boy, a 26 x 22 comedy series for Teletoon aimed at the six-to-12 set.

Vancouver post shop Artifex Studios worked on a dozen FX scenes on Julia Kwan’s festival darling Eve & the Fire Horse, including a dream sequence of horses running underwater, and an opera-singing goldfish that is attracting a lot of attention.

It has been two months since SaskFilm implemented revisions to its provincial tax credit, putting it on par with Manitoba’s as the most attractive in the country. And although production has not significantly increased yet, interest from producers both in and out of the province has been steady and noted, according to Susanne Bell, acting Saskatchewan film commissioner and SaskFilm CEO.