Caroline DiCocco is the new minister of culture in Ontario, following a cabinet shuffle by Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty. It is the first cabinet post for DiCocco, the MPP from the southern Ontario riding of Sarnia-Lambton, since she first took office in 1999.

Quebec pop star and filmmaker Dan Bigras (Le Ring interieur) opened at the top box-office spot among Canadian films with his gritty take on Montreal street life, La Rage de l’ange – pushing aside Beowulf & Grendel in the week of March 31 to April 6 with a take of $171,730 across Quebec, for a per-screen average of $6,605.

The DVD release of David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence by Alliance Atlantis continues to perform well at the sales counter. Released on March 14, the film ranked seventh on Nielsen VideoScan’s weekly DVD chart for the week ending March 26, down from the list’s second spot the week before. Violence also placed third on Rogers Video’s top rental list for the week ending April 2.

The Hot Sheet tracks Canadian box-office results for the period March 31-April 6and DVD sales in Canada for the period March 20-26.

The first season of Global’s nighttime soap Falcon Beach averaged nearly 250,000 viewers per episode, according to data from Nielsen Media Research. But according to Barbara Williams, the network’s SVP, programming and production, the mediocre first-play numbers do not paint an accurate picture of how the series performed.

Top 20 TV Programs tracks ratings for the top 20 television shows in Canada for the period April 3-9.

A Montreal distributor has successfully appealed a restrictive rating by the Ontario Film Review Board.

* Decode Entertainment has sold its kids series Chop Socky Chooks (52 x 30) and Planet Sketch (13 x 11) to Danish public broadcaster TV2. Both titles are copros with Aardman Animations in the U.K. TV2 also picked up Decode’s 3D animated The Save-Ums.

Odeon Films isn’t focusing heavily on TV commercials to market its April 21 release of Silent Hill, the $45-million horror adaptation of the video game. Instead, it is reaching out to fans of the game through the Internet.
The Toronto-based outfit has periodically released online photos of the movie’s monstrous creatures to demonstrate its authenticity and respect for the popular game.

Canada is going into the Banff World Television Festival with 18 nominations for the fest’s annual awards, with strong showings in the categories of animation, lifestyle and interactive programming.

Bernard Couture won best feature cinematographer of 2005 at the Canadian Society of Cinematographers Awards on April 8 in Toronto for his work on Le Survenant – beating out Pierre Gill (Maurice Richard) and René Ohashi (Saint Ralph).

The person who first suggested that CBC should hire Fred Fuchs was Fred Fuchs.