Sander Gibson is a commercial attorney specializing in entertainment law with Gascon & Associés (Montreal), and acts as an arbitrator in entertainment and commercial matters. He is an arbitrator for the IFTA and is a member of the ADR Institute of Ontario, and the Dispute Resolution Section of the American Bar Association.

Why does Playback write such negative things about a movie when it could write positive things just as honestly? I am referring to your nasty short paragraph (Critical Mass, March 14, p.4) about Daniel and the Superdogs.

In a recent online Playback poll question asking ‘Do you believe that broadcasters have a rejuvenated interest in Canadian drama?’ 71% of respondents voted no and 29% voted yes.

Sometime in June, Canadian Heritage Minister Liza Frulla is expected to make an announcement that has had broadcasters and TV producers buzzing for much of the last year. The federal government, it is assumed, will make a call as to who should take full control of roughly $250 million in funds directed at making TV shows. Will it be Telefilm Canada or the Canadian Television Fund?

Three years after putting Nunavut on the filmmaking map with Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn have started work on their follow-up with the similarly set The Journals of Knud Rasmusen. The pic is a history piece, set in 1920s Igloolik, about the culture clash between Europeans and the Inuit, as seen by a local shaman, his daughter, and the titular, real-life Dutch explorer.

McCulloch makes Comeback

Care Bears out of hibernation

Toronto: Temple Street Entertainment has optioned Paul Quarrington’s novel Galveston, and put him to work on the screenplay to be produced by Ivan Schneeberg and David Fortier. It’s the story of three people who camp out on a Caribbean island about to be rocked by a killer hurricane and Schneeberg hopes that, when the time comes, the picture will play well on both sides of the border, similar to the well-received adaptation of Quarrington’s Whale Music in 1994.

Motion control effects went out of fashion when digital post-production showed what it could do. But, according to Jerry Andrews of Toronto-based Driven Visual Effects, they are back.

Frequent award collector Paul Sarossy and Steve Danyluk led the pack of winners as the Canadian Society of Cinematographers celebrated the year’s best work at its annual awards dinner, April 9 in Toronto.

An international flavor pervades this year’s Canadian Spectrum at Hot Docs, running April 22 to May 1 at five screening venues in Toronto.

Alternately amusing and reverent, The Cross and Bones has the coveted April 23 opening slot in Hot Docs’ 2005 Canadian Spectrum program, where it makes its world premiere.