Toronto outfit joins the stampede into feature distribution, looking to pick up 10 titles of mainly family entertainment per year

Anti-runaway lobbyists have filed a formal complaint with Washington, looking to end Canadian film and TV subsidies. Next stop, the World Trade Organization

CanWest network partners with Sears and Burger King to promote its primetime programs; caster also offers exclusive online Heroes sneak peek

As the Toronto International Film Festival gets ready to unspool the best field of Canadian films in years, the current shake-up of Canadian distributors has an air of déjà vu.

MONTREAL: Who is Josée Verner?

The Movie Network and Movie Central series Slings & Arrows and ReGenesis lead with 14 and 12 nominations, respectively, while there is no sign of CBC’s Little Mosque on the Prairie among best comedy nominees going into the 22nd annual Gemini Awards.

Halifax: The 27th edition of the Atlantic Film Festival will feature a trio of highly anticipated homegrown productions, including opening gala Shake Hands with the Devil and a pair of titles involving rising local writer/director Chaz Thorne.

Halifax: Local product Chaz Thorne will be the star of the Atlantic Film Festival’s opening weekend. The Haligonian hyphenate produced and cowrote Clement Virgo’s Poor Boy’s Game and coproduced, wrote and directed Just Buried, his feature helming debut. Both will screen at the fest.

It’s the end of an era for Alliance Atlantis Communications, once Canada’s largest production company, which has been broken up following the Aug. 15 close of its acquisition by CanWest Global Communications and Goldman Sachs for $2.3 billion.

You can’t be in two places at once, much less in three or four, no matter how good the movies in those theaters might be. Which is why every edition of the Toronto International Film Festival forces us all to make some hard choices. See the new Greenaway picture? Or wait for the theatrical release and go to Midnight Madness instead? And so we ask:

• Marianne O’Reilly has been named president of Rainmaker Visual Effects. O’Reilly joined the Vancouver shop as a visual effects producer in 1999 and has 17 years experience in film, television and sports. Her credits include Stargate SG-1, Dead Like Me and Blades of Glory. Additionally, Rainmaker has promoted Shauna Bryan to head of business development and Jason Dowdeswell to head of digital studio. Bryan established the company’s London facility and oversaw Blades of Glory, Rainmaker’s largest production to date. Her other credits include She’s the Man, Firewall and White Chicks. Dowdeswell joined the company in 2002 after working for Sony Imageworks and Industrial Light and Magic. His film credits include Godzilla, Outbreak, Species and True Lies.

• Distraction Formats has closed a trio of format and series sales, sending Kenny vs. Spenny and other titles to companies across Europe. The Montreal- and London-based distributor has sold the format rights to Kenny vs. Spenny to Polskie Media, which will adapt the property, seen here on Showcase, for TV4. The original show, from Blueprint Entertainment and Breakthrough Films and Television in Toronto, has gone to more than 10 other territories worldwide, including the Netherlands, the U.K. and Germany.