Montreal’s World Film Fest founder and president Serge Losique has long contended that his event is an exercise in class. If the Toronto International Film Festival were the Hollywood equivalent of a Big Mac, he considers his fest a glass of fine European wine. TIFF is a video game, WFF has subtitles – or so the WFF-made mythology goes. It’s a contrast Losique and his crew have gone out of their way to highlight in interviews over the years.

It always seemed a strange fit. The World Film Festival likes to position itself as an event with old-world European snob appeal. And then, all of a sudden, it was championing Karla, the controversial yet unseen movie about serial sex-killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka.

It must be the strangest and most conspicuous comeback in years. Larry Kent, the Canadian filmmaking pioneer behind such highly regarded works as The Bitter Ash (1963) and High (1967), has returned to features after a 13-year hiatus with The Hamster Cage, a stylish melodrama that will have its premiere at the World Film Festival.

A trio of investors – Jeff Sagansky, Kerry McCluggage and Drew Craig – has put $2 million into Peace Arch Entertainment and taken various seats at its table.

The CRTC has ruled that, although ‘completely inappropriate,’ a racial slur used on air by Tele-Quebec talk show host Benoit Dutrizac does not qualify as abusive language under federal rules. Dutrizac was under investigation for a Jan. 9 airing of Les Francs-tireurs and a segment on street crime in which he referred, in French, to ‘nigger gangs’ in Montreal. Acting on a viewer complaint, the Commission found that the remark was a lapse on Dutrizac’s part, but ‘not contemptuous or hateful’ as defined and prohibited by federal regulations.

The deal is done, the players are putting away their golf clubs, and Canada’s national game will return to the ice this fall. The big question for broadcasters is: will the fans and advertisers be back?
As the dust settles from the NHL players lockout, all sides may well be pondering the fallout that hit Major League Baseball in the U.S. after its 1994 strike – when Americans soured on their national sport, keeping attendance and viewership sluggish for years.
Some marketers and sports consultants predict the same problem will hit hockey and, according to recent reports, Canuck casters have cut their ad rates for the coming season by 20% from those of 2003/04 – banking that one-fifth of fans, in the short term at least, will not tune in this fall.

Production workers and support staff at CBC are ready to hit the picket line Aug. 15 to back demands for greater job security, following a July ballot in which members of the Canadian Media Guild voted 87.3% in favor of a strike.
A 21-day cooling-off period is in place. Both sides and two federally appointed mediators plan to continue negotiating up to the strike deadline. CMG represents 5,500 employees at CBC.
The vote comes at a bad time for the public broadcaster. An August strike could cancel its broadcasts of the Canadian Football League season and of the Canada Games in Regina.

Alliance Atlantis plans to lower the curtain on its small theater chain by the end of September by selling off the five locations it co-owns through its distribution wing.
The movie houses – 24 screens in Ontario and B.C. – have operated under the AA brand since the late ’90s and are owned by Cineplex Galaxy and the Motion Picture Distribution LP, which is half owned by Alliance.
AA originally shared the locations with Famous Players, which Cineplex bought in June.

Shaw Cable will now offer wider carriage of OUTtv, after a long-standing conflict between the owners of Canada’s gay-themed channel and Shaw Communications was settled last month. Similar negotiations with Bell, however, are ongoing.

Ken Ferguson fired back at his critics last month – looking to put down rumors that have surrounded his deal to build Toronto’s newest, biggest studio with an open letter to the local film community.

Vancouver post shop Rainmaker and Halifax filmmaker Howard Green scored two nods each when the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced its nominations for the 2005 Emmy Awards on July 14. This year’s Emmys will be presented on Sept. 18 in L.A., with the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony taking place Sept. 11.

After its third week on the big screen, Aurore, the directorial debut of screenwriter Luc Dionne (Monica la mitraille), has grossed more than $3 million.