* Josée Vallée is now president of Quebec production company Cirrus Communications, taking over for company founder Jacques Blain.

This is in response to the letter to the editor of Playback entitled ‘Producers ‘missing the point’ on SAP’ by Rebecca Schechter, president, Writers Guild of Canada (Oct. 24, p.13).

The Nov. 7 article ‘Pay-TV applicants go to Ottawa – unprepared’ stated that three of the four companies seeking to launch new pay-TV channels – Spotlight Entertainment, Allarco Entertainment and Groupe Archambault – had not finished their paperwork in time for their CRTC hearings in October.

In the Nov. 7 Gemini Awards report, the cast listed for best comedy series nominee The Newsroom omitted Peter Keleghan, who plays irrepressible news anchor Jim Walcott.

If Academy voters are like Playback readers, it will be a close race at this year’s Gemini Awards. In response to an online Playback poll asking what should win the Gem for best dramatic series, 26% of voters chose Da Vinci’s Inquest, followed by 24% for This Is Wonderland, 23% for Degrassi: The Next Generation, 18% for ReGenesis, 5% for The Eleventh Hour and 4% for Godiva’s.

While English Canada scratches its head wondering how it can inject some life into its sagging film industry, the folks at culture-funder Société de développement des entreprises culturelles are raising a glass to their first 10 years.

Cookie Jar goes Boing Boing

Halifax: The infamous October Crisis will be revisited in a CBC limited drama series by Barna-Alper Productions and Big Motion Pictures. But executive producer/cowriter Wayne Grigsby says October 1970 will go much deeper than just the one month when ‘terrorism’ and ‘war-torn’ were synonymous with Montreal.
The 8 x 60 series begins on Oct. 5, 1970 – the day British diplomat James Cross was kidnapped from his Montreal home – through the murder of Quebec minister of labor Pierre Laporte, the War Measures Act, the manhunt for Front de Libération du Québec members Paul and Jacques Rose, and their arrests in December.

Enter the Dragon Boys

Soulful thriller wraps

* The new WB series The Evidence is shooting in Vancouver until March. The crime drama from exec producers Dustin Thomason and Sam Baum will debut mid-season on ABC and CTV and stars Orlando Jones (Double Take) and Martin Landau (Ed Wood).

Since its creation in 1995, the Quebec funding agency Société de développement des entreprises culturelles has been instrumental in growing Quebec cinema.