Astral Media will turn 60 years old during the 2005/06 television season, but it is still thinking young with its Teletoon and Family Channel specialties.

No stranger to controversy, the Montreal World Film Festival will screen the world premiere of Karla – the hotly debated feature, formerly known as Deadly – about convicted killer Karla Homolka.

It’s been a busy summer for The Comweb Group. Not only has the company scrambled to meet a sudden surge in demand for production services, but it has also sold its L.A.-based equipment supplies operation, ended a long-standing partnership with Toronto prodco Protocol Entertainment, and entered a new partnership with Vancouver-based post company Rainmaker.

The first job I had out of university was for The Partners’ Film Company in Toronto. It lasted a week.

Louis Bélanger and Bruce McDonald were among the 11 filmmakers who drew cheques from Telefilm Canada late last month through the low-budget end of its Canada Feature Film Fund.

It is not hard to find friends after handing out more than $1.6 million, and after the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund released its annual round of grants, Leigh Badgley was quick to sing its praises.

Hogtown officials could be doing more, say Playback readers. In a recent online poll that asked ‘Is the City of Toronto doing enough to support the local film and TV industry?’, 18% voted yes, and 82% voted no.

In the July 18 article ‘Corus channels court older viewers,’ the ownership of the CMT station was mis-stated. CMT is fully owned by Corus, whereas The Documentary Channel is 53% owned by Corus, with the remainder divided among CBC, the National Film Board and independent programmers.

Montreal: Production has wrapped on a new feature about Quebec’s greatest hockey hero from two of the province’s most acclaimed producers, Denise Robert and Daniel Louis of Montreal’s Cinémaginaire, recent Oscar winners for Les Invasions barbares.
Principal photography on Maurice Richard ran May 29 to July 31 in and around Montreal and Quebec City.

Nomad travels the world

Toronto: The way Vincenzo Natali remembers it, even at age 11, he knew that the animation in 1978’s Watership Down was ‘totally wrong.’
‘It was very Disney,’ he recalls. Disney with rabbit blood, to be sure, but still out of step with the distinctly harsh mood of the Richard Adams book. He hopes that a new version – in early development at Capri Films with him as director – will make things right.

Walsh pilot Hatches as series in St. John’s