The CFTPA has awarded Paperny Films president David Paperny the 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year Award. The Van-based prodco has six new and returning series on the slate this year, including the follow-up to The Week the Women Went, the initial season of which was a ratings winner for the CBC.

HBO documentary boss Sheila Nevins will be presented with the third annual Doc Mogul award this spring at Hot Docs, cheering her award-winning tenure at the U.S. pay channel. Nevins, who after 30 years at HBO has had a hand in almost 200 projects, will be presented with the award on May 5 in Toronto, during the run of the annual doc festival.

Polytechnique: Denis Villeneuve’s retelling of the 1989 Montreal Massacre has induced widespread debate and controversy. While critics are united in their praise of his cinematic skills, which Le Devoir’s Ève Langevin calls ‘extraordinary,’ she complains that the director ‘had lost sight of the enormity’ of the event. The film fails to ‘say anything profound about this horrific event,’ agrees Brendan Kelly at the Montreal Gazette. But Nathalie Petrowski at La Presse counters that Polytechnique is rare in Quebec cinema in that it ‘does not tell us what to think, it invites us to draw our own conclusions.’ She aptly sums up Polytechnique as a ‘terrible beautiful film.’

Shaw Communications has put four shows in the running for its $50,000 annual Rocket Prize. The company nodded to Spectra Animation’s Fred’s Head, Sienna Films’ How She Move, seasons three and four of Instant Star from Epitome Pictures, and the CTV MOW Sticks & Stones, produced through Cirrus Communications and Dream Street Pictures. A jury of about 800 grade school students from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto will vote on a winner, to be announced on May 6.

Writer George F. Walker and filmmaker Paul Gross will each add a Governor General prize to their list of achievements, having been…

They say they aren’t part of a collective movement, but most of the filmmakers billed as Quebec’s New Wave have this in common…

Scribes from Corner Gas, Flashpoint and This Hour Has 22 Minutes garnered multiple nominations in their…

The Toronto International Film Festival Group has hired Jennifer Bell, putting the former…

The veterans beat out the kids Friday night at the 2009 ACTRA Awards, which began with a tribute to the retro years of Gordon Pinsent…

Bruce McDonald’s latest is headed for an American theatrical release following a deal with IFC Films…

The director/actor team behind one of the most successful films in Canadian history, Bon Cop, Bad Cop, is back with Cadavres…