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.

With feature documentaries demonstrating impressive box office in recent years, distributors have become increasingly careful – and clever – when releasing non-fiction fare.

This year’s sixth annual Toronto Documentary Forum will provide more opportunities for filmmakers seeking funding and will give broadcasters a stronger voice at the proceedings. The new initiatives come after event director Michaelle McLean did an evaluation of TDF’s first five years.

Stress, high drama and white-knuckled adrenaline characterize the annual 2880 Film Blitz, the third edition of which takes place in Montreal May 27-29. Over the course of one weekend, independent film crews will put themselves through sleepless misery as they compete for prizes in the indie film contest.

Exhibitors and distributors have their own problems, not the least of which are piracy, competing home technologies and – in this country at least – the reported impending sell-off of a certain 84-location theater chain.

Lions Gate and its newly spun-off distribution partner Maple Pictures make their screening debut at this year’s ShowCan with the ensemble piece Crash – directed by Paul Haggis (Due South) and starring Sandra Bullock and Matt Damon, among others – on April 30.

A sad reality of English-Canadian cinema has been that most domestic productions, vying against Hollywood fare, end up getting play on only one or two screens in the major markets. The smaller markets, meanwhile, traditionally would never get a chance to see these films theatrically, and as for foreign distribution, forget it.

As Hollywood gets ready to unleash its spring and summer superheroes on suspecting moviegoers, Quebec distributors are likewise readying their slates of potentially lucrative domestic films. This summer’s offerings are marked by literary adaptations and the return of proven production teams.

Ottawa has rethought and, again, tabled its thoughts on the Lincoln Report – laying out a rough plan for the future of Canada’s broadcasting policy that calls for industry-wide improvements to local and regional programming, a steady share of CTF funds for CBC, and a freeze on current foreign ownership restrictions – but which sidesteps calls for a redo of the 1999 Television Policy and for more stable CBC funding.