Sniffer snags Palme d’Or

A new APTN animated youth program is the only new English-language series given an injection of cash from the Independent Production Fund.

The best and most kid-friendly of French-language programming was feted in Montreal on June 1 at the Alliance for Children and Television awards – with the highest praise of the night going to local toon house Zone3 for its preschool-aimed Cotoons.

Calgary: Producer Heather Haldane sounds exhausted on the phone from Calgary after spending most of last month high in the Rocky Mountains making the 2 x 120 CBC miniseries Everest ’82, a copro between her Toronto-based Screen Door and Calgary’s Alberta Filmworks.

Montreal-based Cineflix is adding to its roster of documentary-style programming with four new factual series now shooting or in prep in southern Ontario.

Kahn does Murder on Spec

Scott gets Saved

* Screen Door is shooting the pilot for its behind-the-scenes hockey series MVP in Toronto.

CBC will unveil the long-awaited What It’s Like Being Alone on June 26, some two years after it was first announced. The stop-motion series by animation prodigy Brad Peyton was delayed by an order for more episodes, and is thought to be a Great Gloomy Hope for the Ceeb’s summer lineup. It airs Mondays at 9:30 p.m.

In the end, more money on the table made all the difference when, on May 18, Allarco Entertainment won the first new pay-TV licence in Canada in more than two decades, thanks to a cash-rich package for homegrown productions.

Rainmaker has formally opened the doors to a new London facility, with no less than The Da Vinci Code as its inaugural project.

Producers nationwide have reached a new collective agreement with the Writers Guild of Canada, are close to a deal with the Directors Guild of Canada, and, along with U.S. producers, face mediation in their standoff with the Union of British Columbia Performers.