• Physical effects for the forthcoming Discovery Channel miniseries Race to Mars were handled by Louis Craif, while CG work was supervised by Jacques Levesque. Also, QuickPlay Media had a total of 15 people working on the online aspect of the Mars project over three years, not 15 at a time. Incorrect information appeared in the Aug. 20 issue.

To a young producer, it sounds like a dream come true. After struggling to complete your feature film, you get accepted into the Toronto International Film Festival. After all, most every producer with eyes on the English-Canadian, North American and international markets wants in at TIFF, and out of all the Canuck features submitted (216 this year), only 20 to 30 will make the final cut.

He’ll probably hate me for letting this kitty out of the bag, but if you’re looking for work, you might want to give Bob Trimbee a call.

Degrassi: The Next Generation has become the first TV program available on a pay-per-download basis in Canada through Puretracks.com.

Filming of The Weight, a new 8 x 60 drama about life in a suburban wasteland from powerhouse writers George F. Walker and Dani Romain, has begun in the Scarborough suburb of Toronto.

The new CBC drama Heartland has started shooting in and around Calgary, turning the best-selling novels by English author Lauren Brooke into a 13 x 60 for the network’s family-aimed Sunday night lineup.

Producer Rob Merilees of Vancouver’s Infinity Features and director Charles Martin Smith wrapped the Canada/U.K. copro Stone of Destiny in Glasgow, Scotland and London on Aug. 10. It is their second feature collaboration, following 2003’s acclaimed The Snow Walker.

Among the many adventures of Odysseus in Homer’s The Odyssey, The Isle of Mists ranks as one of the scariest, according to the author himself.

SK Films has been given US$3 million to go chase butterflies, and plans to shoot its large-screen Flight of the Butterflies through most of next year in Ontario, Texas and Mexico.

HALIFAX — The Growing Op’s lights are on. A production office for the $1.7-million feature has opened in Moncton, NB, and the 22-day shoot begins Aug. 25. Feature first-timer Michael Melski wrote, directs and produces with Monique Leblanc, Doug Pettigrew and Rick Warden. Thom Fitzgerald is the executive producer.

U.S. net The CW has commissioned the first 13 episodes of fish-out-of-the-subcontinent series Aliens in America, a comedy about a Pakistani teen who moves in with a white-bread Wisconsin family. Produced by CBS Paramount Network Television and Warner Bros. Television, the program went to camera in Vancouver on July 30 with a wrap date of Oct. 25.

This year’s bumper crop of Canadian movies at TIFF will send people to their basements in search of old program books to see if there has ever been a comparable lineup in the festival’s 32-year history. But they won’t find one quite like it, because this is the year our film industry comes of age.