The B.C. production industry has high hopes that the provincial government is planning to level the playing field, and match Ontario and Quebec’s lucrative 25% all-spend incentives. And soon.

Program aimed at Anglo filmmakers in Quebec looks to be more accessible

Did you hear the one about the film funding agency that tried to start a comedy factory?

Alberta is to sweeten its 20% tax rebate for film and TV producers, looking to compete with Quebec and Ontario after those provinces decided to allow Hollywood producers to write off all production expenses. Alberta Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett says that his province’s film and TV tax rebate, part of the Alberta Film Development Program, will raise its cap from $3 million to $5 million.

Five feature-length comedies are expected to go to camera by 2011/12 via a new effort by the Canadian Film Centre, Telefilm Canada and Just for Laughs.

Twenty-one Canadian screenwriters will have a chance to develop their scripts, thanks to funding from the Astral Media Harold Greenberg Fund. The Script Development Program received 118 applications this year, in categories ranging from animation to historical epic and teen comedy.

The Cogeco Program Development Fund has extended its funding of dramatic series for another year, to August 2010. The fund, which until recently supported only MOWs, miniseries and dramatic pilots, was earlier this year broadened to include drama series, joining with the Independent Production Fund, which had been hit by a dramatic decrease in its endowment.

Telefilm Canada has handed out much-needed cash to digital media producers to make and market 56 next-generation products. As it unveiled its 2009/10 product assistance funding from the $15 million Canada New Media Fund, the federal funder said it has offered repayable advances to local producers to help develop and produce a range of digital projects, including console games, mobile apps and websites.

Hot Docs and Canwest have picked 11 projects to receive a total of $254,500 in grants and no-interest loans from the Canwest-Hot Docs Documentary Fund. Established in 2008, the monies are made up of a $3 million completion fund and a $1 million development fund targeted to help cash-strapped doc makers.

Downplaying talk of a price war with B.C., the Ontario premier stresses need to compete with all territories. ‘It’s aimed at everyone’

Less is sometimes more, says Bell Fund of pilot program for projects under $100,000