MONTREAL: A preview of close to 40 National Film Board French Program titles set for upcoming release, or currently in production, reveal the board is staying the course with established categories, such as socially relevant documentaries and auteur-animated films.

The Atlantic Film Festival is gearing up for its 23rd edition, running Sept. 12-20 in Halifax, and this year its coproduction program, Strategic Partners, will focus on production opportunities between Canada and the U.S., U.K. and Republic of Ireland.

MONTREAL: Telefilm Canada has announced funding support for 44 projects in its first round of Canada New Media Fund decisions for 2003/04.

VANCOUVER: Production volumes in Victoria are on a record-setting pace after the first six months of the year, says the Greater Victoria Film Commission.

* Telefilm Canada has announced the appointment of John Galaway to the position of director of the Ontario/Nunavut regional office and national sector head – television, operations, effective immediately. Galaway was formerly the region’s television unit director.

MONTREAL: When the CRTC renewed the CBC and Societe Radio-Canada licences and their affiliated specialty news services in January of 2000, it attached the strange condition prohibiting both the English and French TV networks of the CBC from broadcasting non-Canadian blockbuster movies during peak viewing hours.

Television broadcasters and producers seldom run short of reasons to complain. But we certainly can’t gripe about a lack of public attention for our industry and its woes.

The feature Hank and Mike, a copro of Toronto’s Darius Films and Five Faces Films, will apply for but has not yet received Telefilm Canada funding, as reported in the Aug. 4 Ontario Scene.

Only in Canada could there be a six-year gap between seasons of a hit series, but a second run of The Newsroom is, finally, now underway in Toronto. Tele-auteur Ken Finkleman has written another 13 eps of the black comedy and will again direct and star, appearing alongside Peter Keleghan and Karen Hines. Season one regular Jeremy Hotz and Leah Pinsent, seen in last year’s MOW Escape from the Newsroom, are not returning.
‘The first season of The Newsroom was more innocent because it was satirical,’ says Finkleman. ‘We looked at the world and tried to take it on. This time it’s darker because it accepts the futility of change.’

Regina’s Verite Films is currently in preproduction on a new series called Renegade Press, a youth-aimed dramatic series for a whole whack of broadcasters. The series is about five teenagers who volunteer for Internet newspaper RenegadePress.com, and each episode is based on events that face or have faced the age group.
‘We follow our characters as they investigate teen life from within youth subculture,’ says cocreator/executive producer Virginia Thompson. ‘They usually end up learning more than they bargain for, and a lot about themselves.’

VANCOUVER: Insight Film & Video Production in Vancouver, in collaboration with Vancouver-based Shavick Entertainment, has wrapped the first of six MOWs for Blockbuster in the U.S.
Biohazard, a sci-fi horror story, stars Lorenzo Lamas. It wrapped in July after production in Chilliwack and Abbotsford, locations that pay the regional bonus tax credits.

MONTREAL: The opening-night film at this year’s World Film Festival (Aug. 27 to Sept. 7) is director Louis Belanger’s Gaz Bar Blues. The film is also entered in the official World Cinema competition.