Toronto: Muse Entertainment and Lifetime have wrapped the MOW The House Next Door after a four-week stay at Toronto Film Studios – sending stars Lara Flynn Boyle and Colin Ferguson home and the footage into post for an airdate sometime in October.

Winnipeg: The political punch-out that was the Meech Lake Accord will be revisited in Elijah, the dramatized story of native leader Elijah Harper, now in the works at Vancouver’s Anagram Pictures and Winnipeg’s Eagle Vision.

Regina: 4 Square Productions of Regina has linked arms with Australia’s Visionquest Entertainment to make Medicine Woman – a factual 13 x 30 that follows host Dr. Daniele Behn on a tour of the world’s shamans, herbalists and other mystic healers.

Toronto: CBC pulled back the curtain, just an inch, on its new daytime talk show recently when it tapped TV and print personality Gillian Deacon as host. Deacon – an arts and environmental reporter seen on CBC, CBC Newsworld and Discovery and in the pages of Green Living magazine – will front the show when it launches sometime this fall, in the weekday 11 a.m. slot.

Montreal: A long list of famous actors are in Montreal, all to appear in the Bob Dylan sort-of biopic I’m Not There by Todd Haynes (Safe, Far from Heaven). Haynes, true to his oddball form, has cast six different actors as the iconic singer-songwriter, among them Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett. The production is shooting at Mel’s Cité du Cinéma.

* Vincent Cassel (Shrek, Irréversible) has joined the cast of David Cronenberg’s forthcoming Eastern Promises, set to begin shooting Nov. 19.

As the Vancouver International Film Festival hits the quarter-century mark, festival director Alan Franey can’t help but look back to the beginning just as he readies to unspool more than 300 films from over 50 countries, Sept. 28 to Oct. 13.

After 20 years in operation, VIFF’s venerable professional development events kick off Sept. 27 with a new director, a new name, and a new focus.

While spotlighting local talent, the Film & Television Forum is also bringing home some of Canada’s finest exports, including Joel H. Cohen, a writer and producer on cartoon phenom The Simpsons.

A celluloid helping of Canadiana isn’t any less palatable because it’s been dished up elsewhere, says VIFF’s Terry McEvoy.

Run Robot Run!

VIFF has this year uncovered a goldmine of docs that dig behind the daily headlines of terrorist acts and social injustices to come up with investigative or human stories that inform and inspire.