Montreal-based distributor Cinema Libre officially closed its doors on Nov. 15. The not-for-profit organization, formed 25 years ago to provide a distribution option for documentary, short and independent filmmakers, had more than 1,000 titles in its library, the rights to which have been returned to the filmmakers.

November has been a tough month at the box office for Canadian films, with three newly released domestic films bringing in a combined box-office take of less than $11,000.

Regina: Starting to shoot a feature in Saskatchewan at the end of September can be a little risky, but two snow days and one Indian summer later, Terry Gilliam’s Tideland is enjoying a blessed shoot.
Principal photography began in and around Regina on Sept. 27. Things started to look grim when, several weeks in, the feature’s nine-year-old star, Vancouver native Jodelle Ferland (Kingdom Hospital, Wolf Lake) suffered a bug bite that left her lip too swollen to work. Then the area was hit with an incredible snowfall.

Anglophone producers in Quebec have joined forces to create the English Language Film and Television Council of Quebec. In addition to identifying common challenges Quebec’s English producers face, one of the council’s key objectives will be to gain recognition for them as an official language minority community, making them eligible for federal funding that is usually reserved for francophones living outside Quebec.

Four groups vying for Telefilm Canada and SODEC funds to host a Montreal-based international film festival will have to wait longer than expected to find out who among them will become the recipient of $1 million previously earmarked for Serge Losique’s Montreal World Film Festival.

While several new shows on CBC struggled to reach audiences during the final stretch of the 2004 Major League Baseball season, the pubcaster came out on top when it premiered H2O, a two-part thriller starring Paul Gross, just days after the final game of the World Series.

Istvan Szabo’s Being Julia has been picking up steam at the box office since Toronto distributor ThinkFilm started the film’s platform release with an exclusive Toronto engagement on Oct. 15.

The 33rd Montreal Festival of Nouveau Cinema, which screened more than 200 titles from 42 countries, wrapped after 10 days on Oct. 24 with the premiere of Memoires affectives (Looking for Alexander) from Quebec director Francis Leclerc.

The six finalists for CBC’s daytime drama project include pitches from some of Canada’s most prolific production companies, including two from Atlantic Canada, one from Vancouver and three from Toronto.

Montreal: Arnie Gelbart, president of Montreal-based Galafilm Productions, is doing his part to boost Canadian drama, with a feature and two MOWs currently underway, several children’s properties in development, as well as a doc series in production for Showcase.
Going forward, Galafilm’s slate will be more focused on children’s programming, according to Gelbart, who says producing four seasons of The Worst Witch, a Canada/U.K. dramatic kids series, encouraged Galafilm’s move towards children’s programming. Galafilm also produces the youth series 15/Love.

It turns out that production in L.A. may not be destined to collapse at the hands of Canadian service producers, as some Americans have been griping since the release of the 1999 Monitor Report. Commissioned by the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America, the Monitor Report has been held up as a bible by anti-runaway activists in the effort to keep productions in the U.S.
But a new Canadian-commissioned study, International Film and Television Production in Canada: Setting the record straight about U.S. ‘runaway’ production, claims that figures in the Monitor Report are erroneous. It also stresses that Canadians spend far more money on Hollywood fare than Americans spend shooting in Canada.

The Oct. 12 episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation on CTV, which approached the difficult youth issues of bullying and school shootings, attracted just under a million viewers, making it the most-watched episode in the series’ four-year history, according to BBM data.