Vancouver: Writer/director Mina Shum is back in the driver’s seat with her third feature Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity. And for the third time, actor Sandra Oh is the lead.
Produced by Raymond Massey (Massey Productions, Vancouver) and Christina Jennings and Scott Garvie (Shaftesbury Films, Toronto) as a B.C./Ontario coproduction, the magic realism story is about Chinese-Canadians who live in Vancouver’s east side.
Mindy, a young girl, uses Feng Shui to help her single mother’s financial and romantic lives, but ends up yielding unexpected results.

Vancouver: B.C.’s animators warn that the industry’s current good health is in jeopardy without the cooperation of educational institutions and government.
According to a survey released Oct. 30 by the Association of British Columbia Animation Producers, B.C.’s animation industry is projected to grow to $668 million in 2003 from $286 million in 1998 – a 235% increase.
But ABCAP says B.C. is lagging other provinces in business-driving incentives.
‘Animation production companies in Ontario and Quebec enjoy a 20% animation production tax credit,’ says Mark Freedman, ABCAP’s president. ‘This creates an unfair advantage and gives eastern Canada a significant competitive edge over B.C.’

Vancouver: In the mid-1990s, ACFC West seemed to be in its death throes – its Toronto affiliate ACFC had succumbed to the onslaught of the rapidly expanding IATSE union and it was waging its own war against IATSE Local 891 at home. Then IATSE 891, Teamsters Local 155 and IATSE Local 669 combined to form the BC Council of Film Unions, secured an exclusive territory of high-end production, and effectively squeezed the undercapitalized ACFC into the low-budget market.

Vancouver: A prime example of IATSE’s culture of home rule – where each of the approximately 25 locals works autonomously and implements its own initiatives – is a new promotional campaign by IATSE Local 667, eastern Canada’s camera unit.

Vancouver: Nearly 30 years later than planned, CHUM Limited has a television station in Vancouver. On Oct. 15, the CRTC approved without an oral hearing CHUM’s $130-million purchase of CKVU from an arm’s-length subsidiary of CanWest Global.
In rubber-stamping the application, the commission once again turned a blind eye to the issue of common ownership, a regulatory policy that is supposed to prohibit one company from operating two television stations in a single market.
But since 1999, when the CRTC upheld the ideal that dual ownership undermines the diversity of voices within a market, the commission has approved all three of the requests for exemptions.

Vancouver: More than 140,000 people attended the nearly 300 films screened at the 20th anniversary Vancouver International Film Festival, ended Oct. 12, generating box office of more than $800,000. Both attendance and revenues are new records, say organizers.
‘The festival began on Sept. 27, just 16 days after Sept. 11,’ says festival director Alan Franey. ‘Approximately 15% of the over-300 scheduled guests decided to cancel their plans to attend, but we were able to transfer their tickets to other filmmakers and business people. Amazingly, only two film prints needed to be cancelled outright.’

Vancouver: St. Monica, a B.C./Ontario coproduction, is one of the first features to benefit from the booty falling from the Canadian Feature Film Fund’s performance envelope.
The producers attached to the drama previously engineered the box-office successes The New Waterford Girl, Jennifer Kawaja and Julia Sereny of Sienna Films, and Better than Chocolate, Sharon McGowan and Peggy Thompson of Mortimer & Ogilvy Films, who have $709,000 and $409,000, respectively, due from the $100-million kitty. The producers got money from both the performance and selective envelopes.

Vancouver: In a deal worth $57 million (US$36 million) in cash, shares and assets, Landscape Entertainment has bought a 20% stake in L.A.-based Artisan Entertainment. While the deal should be final by the end of October, less clear is what kind of a Canadian presence Landscape will maintain.
Equal partners CTV and an investor syndicate headed by Canadian Bob Cooper founded Landscape Entertainment in 1999 as a Canadian parent company with offices in Toronto and L.A. creating film, television and Internet content.

Vancouver: B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, already spearheading a Core Services Review, announced late last month that the cost of government will be cut by an average 35% by 2005 – a prospect that has industries across the province bracing for layoffs, service reductions and program eliminations.
In practice, it means that all government ministries, except for those overseeing health and education, must cut spending by 20% and 50% over the next three years.
For the domestic film and television industry specifically, the budget-slashing means that funding agency B.C. Film, marketer B.C. Film Commission, the domestic tax credit, the production services tax credit, Bridge Studios, the B.C. Arts Council, sponsorships for programs such as the Vancouver International Film Festival, the talent agent registry, apprenticeships, occupational health and safety programs, training and the Knowledge Network, among other relevant spending initiatives are in question.

Vancouver: Late last month, Vancouver’s City Council unanimously passed a proposal to create space dedicated to Vancouver’s domestic production community – thanks in large part to the efforts of the Vancouver International Film Festival Society and the city’s cultural planning department.
The 13,700-square-foot Vancouver International Film Centre on Seymour Street (across the alley from the new Scotiabank Dance Centre) will feature a 170-seat multimedia screening room that will be able to accommodate a variety of formats.
‘The whole spirit of the facility is forward-looking,’ says Vancouver International Film Festival director Alan Franey. ‘We want to become known as a space for independent Canadian production and art cinema.’

Vancouver: Canadian broadcasters sacrificed about $3 million in lost ad revenue to focus their energies on covering the catastrophic terrorist attacks in the U.S. Sept. 11.
That tally, derived from industry analyst estimates, is just 0.1% of the total Canadian television advertising pie of about $2.4 billion in national and retail sales annually.
The CBC main channel and CBC Newsworld, for example, offered commercial-free, ‘wall-to-wall’ coverage of the tragedy and the ensuing investigations for 43 hours. Anchor Peter Mansbridge was on air for 16 hours the first day and 12 hours the next.

Vancouver: The loss of at least one drama series, a softening international market, the lack of U.S. business partners, a breach of a loan covenant and the continuing malaise of public markets contribute to today’s difficult times at Peace Arch Entertainment, says its CEO Juliet Jones.
At the end of September, Class A and B shares of the Vancouver company traded at, respectively, $2 per share and $2.25 per share – at or pennies above the year lows. The year highs are $5.50 per share and $5.40 per share, respectively.
Investors responded negatively to the third-quarter results that showed earnings off by nearly $1.2 million compared to Q3 in fiscal 2000.