Oscar-winning animator Derek Lamb died on Nov. 5 of cancer at a friend’s house in Washington State, reportedly with wife Tracie Smart by his side. He was 68.

For the first time in a long time, the predominant language in the highest-grossing indigenous film is not French. It isn’t English either.
Water, by Toronto director Deepa Mehta, struck a chord at the Canadian box office, bringing in nearly $221,000 in just 11 theaters after its Nov. 4 release in Toronto and Vancouver, averaging a whopping $20,000 per theater. The Hindi-language film, about impoverished widows in 1930s India, brought in another $302,900 over the Nov. 11 weekend, when it expanded to 41 theaters across the country, for a cumulative of $504,400 by Nov. 14, according to distributor Mongrel Media.

CBC scored decent numbers with its MOW biopics on Shania Twain and Walter Gretzky and with the return of Rick Mercer, perhaps signaling a turnaround in its post-lockout ratings.

The Hot Sheet tracks Canadian box-office results for the period Nov. 4-10 and television ratings for the period Nov. 7-13.

All eyes in Quebec are on Maurice Richard, because there is nowhere else to look. According to Patrick Roy, SVP at distrib Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm, the biopic about the legendary Montreal hockey star has received the biggest marketing campaign of any locally produced film in the history of the province. Vivafilm has invested $1.5 million in Richard’s P&A and saturated Quebec with TV, radio, transit, outdoor, print and other advertising. In comparison, it pumped $800,000 into its recent documentary hit Les Voleurs d’enfance.

Montreal: More than 50 Montreal filmmakers and screenwriters have banded together to create a new independent distribution company.

Exhibitor Cineplex Entertainment is testing Chicken Little, Disney’s first CG feature toon, in 3D on a modest two screens in Canada, compared to 83 in the U.S.

Winnipeg: And the winner, for Biggest Threat to the Broadcasting Industry That Might – Over Time and on Closer Inspection – Turn Out To Be A Really Good Thing After All, is…

Winnipeg: CAB handed out its Gold Ribbon Awards on Nov. 8, cheering the best in Canadian radio and TV.

CHUM up 10%

Accomplished director of photography Peter Walker has lost his three-year battle with cancer. He died at his Toronto home Nov. 4 at the age of 53.

CHUM Limited has unveiled a program aimed at boosting independent production in the Prairies. The new Prairie Bridge Finance Program now provides gap-financing loans to film and TV producers in Alberta and Manitoba, to the tune of $50,000 per project.