Vancouver hosts Masters of Horror

* CHUM Television has greenlit The Buck Calder Experience, a comedy pilot about a U.S. director trapped in Canada, from Headtrip Films and ad house Sparks Productions.

To help celebrate the franchise’s 25th anniversary, Fenn Publishing and Madison Press have released the book Degrassi: Generations, which chronicles the shows’ history. The collection, including a foreword by Degrassi mega-fan and soon-to-be feature director Kevin Smith, goes behind-the-scenes on the various Degrassi series, providing write-ups on all the characters and episodes over the years. It is written by Kathryn Ellis, a former Degrassi writer and publicist married to longtime series writer and Degrassi: The Next Generation cocreator Yan Moore.

After 25 years in the trenches, Toronto executive producer Linda Schuyler has a venerable hit TV franchise on her hands, thanks in part to the attention paid it by Hollywood, where the cachet for all things Degrassi continues to grow.

Kevin Smith may not have been able to direct any episodes of Degrassi: The Next Generation, but it is likely that his ultimate canvas will be bigger, as he is slated to shoot a movie adaptation of the series in Toronto around May.

Kit Hood, a British-born film director and editor and former child actor, co-created the Degrassi concept with Linda Schuyler when the two were a couple back in 1979.

Driven by raging hormones, spiked punch and God-knows-what-else, Degrassi characters have gotten up to no end of on-screen trouble for 25 years – producing no end of solid ratings for broadcasters in Canada and abroad.

Yan Moore

Four years ago, producer Linda Schuyler wasn’t confident that she could saddle up her Degrassi franchise for yet another series, recalls CTV president of programming Susanne Boyce.

The Atlantic Film Festival usually doesn’t need much of an excuse for a party, so the mind races to think what might happen as the AFF celebrates its silver anniversary, Sept. 15-24.

The 25th anniversary Atlantic Film Festival’s Opening Gala on Sept. 15 will feature the Atlantic premiere of writer/director Thom Fitzgerald’s drama 3 Needles. Produced through Fitzgerald’s Halifax prodco Emotion Pictures and distributed by Seville Pictures, 3 Needles tracks a global epidemic as experienced across three continents.

The AFF premiere of director Nick Willing’s $11-million feature thriller The River King, starring Hollywood thesp Edward Burns and Canucks Rachelle Lefevre (The Legend of Butch & Sundance) and Sean McCann (Miracle), is an appropriate homecoming for two reasons.