Five years ago, Alan Franey had a vision. Frustrated by abysmal office quarters and a lack of screens for non-mainstream movies, the director of the Vancouver International Film Festival decided that a new film center – run by VIFF’s non-profit society – would solve a lot of problems.

Ottawa: When the organizers decided to transform the Ottawa International Animation Festival from an every-other-year fest to an annual event – one that would incorporate the key elements of the original with those of its sister student festival – they thought they’d receive a lot fewer film entries and be smaller overall. Wrong.

Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival wants to spotlight northern Ontario as a place to make movies.

Friends gather to remember Leiterman

VisionTV has been growing its audience steadily since about 2001 – the year COO Mark Prasuhn and head of programming Chris Johnson came aboard – and hopes are high that more lifestyle and light entertainment programming in its 2005/06 fall season will provide a further boost.

Gordon Whittaker is director, Atlantic Canada at Telefilm Canada and former executive director of the Atlantic Film Festival.

Re: ‘War of the World’ (Playback, Aug. 15, p. 29):

I’m willing to wager that ‘controversial’ is the adjective most frequently used to describe forthcoming Canadian films in our past couple of issues. Of course, it is film festival time, and promoting controversy is one way a production can rise from the fall’s deep cinematic muck. Though keep in mind the rule we used to live by back in the day when I worked at the Toronto International Film Festival box office – the sexier the picture in the TIFF program book, or the sexier the title, often the worse the film.

Toronto: S&S Productions is looking to turn out more lifestyle and comedy programming, in part, says boss David Smith, because he and his brother Steve Smith are preparing to retire their long-running The Red Green Show.
The series will shoot its final ep on Nov. 5, bringing 14 seasons to a close and opening the door for a ‘new generation’ of titles and talent, he says.

Beat the Greeks

Halifax: When The Halifax Film Company head Michael Donovan looked into acquiring the rights to make Shake Hands with the Devil into a feature, he was surprised to learn that Laszlo Barna was doing the same thing.
Donovan contacted the head of Toronto’s Barna-Alper Productions, and the two producers promised that whoever secured the rights to retired lieutenant-general Roméo Dallaire’s story would invite the other into the production. HFC got there first.

Vancouver hosts Masters of Horror