The sexy excesses of Where the Truth Lies, the bloodshed in A History of Violence and the live wire that is Water have made for a full season of controversial films this fall.

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The National Screen Institute is adding a few more tiles to the cultural mosaic this autumn by adding to Canada’s stock of aboriginal and minority filmmakers through two programs.

Dark Oracle and CBC’s The Newsroom are both up for International Emmys, and will square off against other comedy and youth-aimed series on Nov. 21 when the 33rd annual TV awards are handed out in New York City.

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Maria Topalovich, like Sergeant Pepper, can easily cast her mind back to a memorable date two decades ago.

CBC president Robert Rabinovitch defended his lockout of the pubcaster’s 5,500 employees before a parliamentary committee late last month, insisting the eight-week work stoppage was necessary to prevent a strike later in the year, during the rollout of the new TV season and the lucrative hockey season.

* Christine Shipton is now VP of original programming at CanWest MediaWorks, just five months after joining the corporation as director of dramatic programming. She has also worked at Alliance Atlantis, the CBC and Blueprint Entertainment.

Global Television surprised many when it announced it would be airing the Gemini Awards for the first time. But will a new broadcast home for Canada’s TV awards mean better ratings, or is the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television simply shuffling the deck?

Coming to a pocket or briefcase near you: QuickPlay Media, which delivers interactive media to mobile devices, has merged with Snap Media, producer of award-winning websites for Degrassi: The Next Generation and CHUM.

Ron Thomson is CEO of Cameron Thomson Group, a Toronto-based business development company specializing in providing corporate development and investment banking services to the media, IT and entertainment industries.

In the Oct. 10 issue of Playback (‘February wedding date for Telefilm & CTF,’ p. 23), I am quoted as saying, ‘Folks who are now our employees will move over to Telefilm. We are not ‘co-operating.’ We’ve been told to step back and let Telefilm do the job…’