Three… two… and one.
The crane camera nosedives – coming in low across the studio, past a twirling acrobat – as the lights come on, spraying purple and green in all directions. The house band, set against a backdrop of downtown Toronto, is two bars into the opening theme when host Enis Esmer comes bounding out and the announcer booms, ‘Get up and relax! It’s The Toronto Show.’

Alliance Atlantis Communications is spinning off its movie distribution business into an income trust.

Canada’s movie awards have a new home – for next year, at least. The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television announced earlier this month that the 24th edition of the Genie Awards will be produced by CHUM Television, and will air on its Bravo!, Star! and Citytv stations in Toronto and Vancouver.

Toronto’s Barna-Alper Productions may have struck twice in the best dramatic series category, but it is Alliance Atlantis’ The Eleventh Hour that leads the pack with 14 overall nominations for the 18th annual Gemini Awards, announced last week by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. Barna-Alper dramas Blue Murder and Da Vinci’s Inquest (which closely trails Eleventh Hour with 11 noms) will take on The Eleventh Hour, Cold Squad and The Atwood Stories for the golden profile on Oct. 20 in Toronto.

Lobby group The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting is launching a national advertising blitz with a series of witty spots appealing to the public to get behind English-language drama. The PSA campaign, valued at around $400,000, will begin airing Sept. 17.

So far, so good. By day six (our press day) of the Toronto International Film Festival, nothing had gone horribly wrong – which is unusual in this town, these days, coming off a summer beset by SARS, the West Nile virus, lagging tourism, and the East Coast blackout.
Toronto the Troubled has looked to the 28th edition of the world’s number two fest for a change of luck, and early indications are good.

Black Ace, a feature film in development about Canadian sports trailblazer Herb Carnegie, won Telefilm Canada’s 4th Pitch This! competition at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film was one of six pitched at the Sutton Place Hotel, weeded down from 72 submissions, and earned its filmmakers $10,000.

The 4th Calgary International Film Festival (Sept. 26 to Oct. 5) will open and close with a bit of local flavor. CIFF’s opening gala is The Cooler, produced by local-gone-Hollywood Michael Pierce, who is bringing the film’s star William H. Macy to town for the screening. The festival will close with Calgary director Gary Burns’ The Problem with Fear.

Montreal: The big winners at the 27th edition of the Montreal World Film Festival are director Louis Belanger and his second feature, Gaz Bar Blues, the hometown favorite in the official long-form competition.

Sudbury, ON isn’t the first town that comes to mind when someone utters the words ‘film festival.’ Then again, neither was Park City, UT once upon a time. But Cinefest Sudbury, now in its 15th year (running Sept. 15-21), is really hitting its stride and has attracted some of the biggest films on the international festival circuit.

Montreal: The Quebec government has confirmed its spring budget promise to invest $15 million in film and audiovisual production.

Crackdown on sat theft