Vic Sarin’s history piece performed below expectations nationwide, but connected with audiences in Vancouver over its opening weekend

The busy Toronto shop is shooting its tween sitcom The Latest Buzz following a 13-episode order from Family Channel

CTV and the makers of Degrassi: TNG are testing the waters of animation with two short toons based on the teen show

The Montreal toonmaker has posted interactive TV vet Josette Bonte to its L.A. office and inked a separate deal to turn out Doodlebops toys

The status of the Canadian Television Fund and its bank account remained uncertain as Playback went to press, despite efforts by Heritage Minister Bev Oda to rein in Shaw Communications and Videotron.

An Ontario court gave the CFTPA a partial victory on Jan. 30 by ordering that an arbitrator help settle its labor dispute with ACTRA. But Justice Sarah Pepall of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice denied the producers’ separate application for a restraining order against ACTRA’s ongoing strike and its continuation letters.

Last-ditch efforts to save the Marine Terminal 28 Studio in Toronto’s east end have failed, and the studio is closing in what its operator, Cinespace Film Studios, says is ‘a tragic precedent.’

Former judge and Competition Bureau commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein is the new boss of the CRTC, following a Jan. 25 announcement by Heritage Minister Bev Oda.

Park City, UT: For the second year in a row, a Latin flavor played well at the Sundance Film Festival, which on Jan. 28 handed its grand jury prize to the Spanish-language drama Padre Nuestro by U.S. writer/director Christopher Zalla. Last year, Quincanera by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland took the prize.

It took nearly 60 years, but we finally have a ‘foreign’-language Oscar nominee from English Canada. Quebec filmmaker Denys Arcand led the charge 20 years ago for French Canada, and has a couple of Oscar noms (The Decline of the American Empire, Jesus of Montreal) and a win for The Barbarian Invasions. That Toronto-based Deepa Mehta’s Water is in Hindi and shot in India makes little difference – and all the difference.

Despite being set in India within a decade of the same tumultuous period described in Deepa Mehta’s tragic love story Water, Vic Sarin’s Partition has none of that film’s grace, restraint or unity of vision. Look for a brief run that attracts a largely Indo-Canadian crowd, followed by a hasty exit from theaters. The film opens Feb. 2 through Seville Pictures.