In the Valley of Elah is a tautly paced detective thriller set among American war vets from Iraq — so it’s no surprise that the press conference for Paul Haggis’ new feature dived passionately into politics. What was surprising was the degree to which Haggis and star Tommy Lee Jones sparred with CBC broadcaster Evan Solomon.

‘Do you want to hear a genuine Hollywood fantasy story?’ asks Chris Teeter, coordinator of the Canadian Music Café. ‘Last year, Molly Johnson got up on stage and sang three songs. At the end of the third one, an American music supervisor… went out to Queen Street West where he could get a cell phone signal, made a call and placed her in the closing credits of a film.’

Anne Michaels’ novel ‘one of the most beautiful and poetic things I’d ever read,’ says Fugitive Pieces director

Steven Spielberg has tapped the director of Fugitive Pieces to work on The Pacific, the HBO miniseries about the Second World War he is co-producing with Tom Hanks

Gordon Pinsent’s laughter is a thing of beauty – rich, full-spirited and utterly infectious. His broad devilish face is suffused with good humor as he considers the question, ‘How does it feel to become an overnight star in the United States at the age of 76?’

Harold Greenberg, the legendary former head of Astral Media, embodied qualities that are exceptionally rare in a chief executive officer of a media empire. Greenberg was a charming yet resolute force who fought relentlessly to create a film and television industry in Canada, leading the way by executive producing the country’s first international box-office sensation, Porky’s.

Private ownership of iconic historical images threatens the classical documentary

Audiences worldwide have grown up with evocative images of astronauts landing on the moon. Who hasn’t seen a triumphant Neil Armstrong make that ‘one giant leap for mankind’?

With dramatic family tales capturing half of the major prizes at the 2007 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, you’d expect that the buzz out of the fest (April 19-29) would be on personal docs focusing on the lives of their filmmakers, or which feature the directors as characters.

Family and political themes pay off as doc fest ends with bigger, flashier awards ceremony