Calgary – Nomadic Pictures has reteamed with Jason Priestley, putting the teen idol-turned-actor in the director’s chair for the MOW Don’t Cry Now, a reworking of the Joy Fielding book for Lifetime and Corus Entertainment.

* Toronto’s Associated Producers (The Exodus Decoded) has wrapped the feature doc The Tomb, due to air later this year on Discovery Channel in the U.S. and VisionTV.

Gatineau, QC: Will Canada’s conventional broadcasters get more deregulation, more options for delivering HD service and more revenue in the CRTC’s next TV policy? If the tone of the hearing held here tells the tale, the answers are likely to be ‘yes-and-no,’ ‘yes,’ and ‘no.’

Police clash with protestors in Battle in Seattle, a feature account of the violence that broke out during the 1999 talks of the World Trade Organization – in the works for Insight Film Studios and Proud Mary Entertainment under director Stuart Townsend (Queen of the Damned). Charlize Theron and Woody Harrelson star.

As negotiations between actors and producers entered their final leg amid the looming prospect of a strike, the uncertainty has already taken its toll on production, with Toronto and Montreal suffering the most damage.

Montreal: One of Canada’s biggest labor funds is negotiating with American producer Edward R. Pressman (American Psycho, Wall Street) to make 12 big-budget films in Montreal over the next five years.

Whistler, BC: Hit with a record-breaking early snowfall, the sixth annual Whistler Film Festival rolled out the white carpet to host four days of 90-plus flicks, and at its Dec. 3 finale handed its $15,000 Borsos award to first-time screenwriter/director Stéphane Lapointe for La Vie secrète des gens heureux (The Secret Life of Happy People).

Canada will be well represented at next year’s Sundance Film Festival, boasting eight official feature film selections at the indie fete. It marks a noticeable shift from the past two years, both of which had only one Canuck feature.

There can be little argument that this year has not been a good one for CBC. And a second not-good year in a row, at that.

When the accounting is done years from now about what impact 2006 had on the business of film and television, the year will be looked upon as one of seeding. The changes that will, over the next few years, transform the film, broadcast and digital media sectors are only just taking root as of this writing.

Days ahead of the Dec. 19 DVD release of Bon Cop, Bad Cop – expected by distributor Alliance Atlantis to eclipse the recent success of kids show phenom Passe-Partout – star Colm Feore talked with Playback about building buzz, making sandwiches and ditching Denzel Washington.

The Hot Sheet tracks Canadian box-office results for the period Dec. 1-7, 2006 and DVD sales in Canada for the period Nov. 20-26, 2006.