After Jonathon Barker left Shaftesbury Films, he and colleague Bob Kerr (co-founder and retired CEO of Imax) started SK Films, a shingle that produces and distributes giant-screen movies. Their latest endeavor, Journey to Mecca, is a story both Barker and Kerr felt particularly passionate about sharing. It tells the story of Ibn Battuta, perhaps the greatest and least-known explorer of all time who, in 1325, did a year-long pilgrimage from Tangier to Mecca.

Spectacle: Elvis Costello with…: Mixed reviews greeted the musically minded talk show when it premiered on U.S.-based Sundance Channel in December (Hollywood Reporter called it ‘tough viewing’), but Canuck critics are decidedly more enthusiastic about the show, hosted by Brit singer-songwriter Elvis Costello, currently airing on CTV.

Filmmaker Ingrid Veninger is hitting the road – film ‘cans’ in hand, enthusiasm to burn, Vancouver or bust – to screen her fest hit Only to ordinary Canadian moviegoers.

The Stargate Atlantis sci-fi series, which completed its five-year run in January, received 17 nominations for the B.C. film and TV industry’s 11th annual Leo Awards. In addition, the franchise’s DVD movie Stargate: Continuum boasts 11 nominations and Stargate creators/coproducers Robert C.Cooper and Brad Wright are being honored with outstanding achievement awards at the May 9 gala (craft awards are being handed out on May 8).

Zac Efron put Alliance Films on top of the box office last week, where the time-bending comedy fronted by the High School Musical…

E1 has struck a multi-picture deal with Marco Weber’s new Senator Distribution for Canadian rights to…

From the makers of such heavy metal documentaries as Heavy Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey and Global Metal comes…

The distributor is in hot pursuit of the box-office crown this weekend with the comedy 17 Again, its largest release…

Cold water is the hot topic at this year’s Hot Docs, which will include five titles about H2O, including the world premiere of Kevin McMahon’s Waterlife, the Canadian director’s look at the Great Lakes, set to the tunes of The Tragically Hip and narrated by lead singer Gordon Downie.

In times of financial turmoil, you can either gripe or focus on solutions. Elizabeth Radshaw, the new director of the Toronto Documentary Forum, chooses the latter – particularly when it comes to supporting films.

Filmmaker and Canadian Film Centre founder Norman Jewison will be honored with a two-night tribute April 17-18 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in an event organized by the CFC to commemorate its 20th anniversary. The program, co-organized by L.A.-based non-profit Film Independent, includes screenings of Jewison’s Oscar winner In the Heat of the Night (1967), preceded by a 90-minute panel discussion featuring the director with cast and crew from his films. The LACMA will also screen 1971’s Fiddler on the Roof, which garnered nine Academy Award nominations, including best picture.