Having a Canadian team in the final round of the NHL playoffs is certainly paying off for the CBC, as more Canadians are tuning in to the series than have done so in more than a decade.

The clock is ticking, there’s $100,000 on the table, and the room is packed with people eager to see if filmmakers can sell themselves and their docs in just three minutes.

The closure of Halifax-based Salter Street Films did not slow Michael Donovan and Charles Bishop for long. The two former Salter principals launched a new prodco, The Halifax Film Company, in the city’s Electropolis Studios May 14, five months after parent company Alliance Atlantis Communications closed the doors on one of Halifax’s most productive companies.

The Delicate Art of Parking, a Vancouver-produced feature-length mockumentary, has grossed more than $100,000 from only eight theaters since its limited national release by Cinema Libre May 13.The comedy began an exclusive run in its hometown April 2, where it grossed $59,461 from two theaters over three weeks.

While the final episodes of American hit sitcoms Friends and Frasier, as well as America’s Tribal Council, the postscript special to Survivor All-Stars, drew huge audiences to Global in early May, the broadcaster has lost two of its most valuable primetime shows and it will be a few months before yet another Survivor sets up shop on whatever remote island comes next.

In 2003, Shernold Edwards was nervous about pitching her MOW Deportees at the annual Innoversity Creative Summit’s Open Door Pitch contest. She pitched unsuccessfully at the same event in 2002, but after going through boot camp at the Canadian Film Centre returned to win best overall pitch, a victory she says has been invaluable to her career.

While filming his third project in Manitoba, Stan Brooks, executive producer of L.A.-based Once Upon a Time Films, quipped that he should have a ‘frequent filming’ card he could get stamped each time he produced in the province (The prodco has been to the province for Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss, The Legend of Butch & Sundance and On Thin Ice). It was a joke Carole Vivier, CEO of Manitoba Film & Sound, decided to take seriously enough to champion.

Frantic Films’ status as one of Canada’s hottest companies has recently been affirmed with the Winnipeg-based production and FX company receiving two prestigious national honors, for talent and innovation in technology.

While his child molestation trial plods on in California, the real Michael Jackson story is unfolding in Calgary.

While documentary production in Canada is still driven primarily by TV presales, it looks like a new model may be on the horizon. Record audiences at Hot Docs 2004 helped to confirm a growing domestic appetite for docs on the big screen.

An unseasonably warm weekend in Montreal may have hurt the box-office take of the highly anticipated Cite-Amerique feature Monica la mitraille, but despite perfect spring weather, the April 30 Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm release grossed $385,419 over its opening weekend.

Two Canadian productions were honored at the April 25 awards ceremony for the seventh Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children, a growing event looking to expand its market and industry presence.