Playback readers want the CRTC to loosen up. In response to Playback’s Web poll question ‘What is the best way for the industry to offset public funding cuts?’, 29.3% of respondents called for a loosening of Canadian-content restrictions. 24.3% called for an increase in the domestic content tax credit; 23.9% felt that producers should look more to the international marketplace; while 17.6% suggest producers dig into their own pockets. Only 5% believe that branded content is the best solution.

Montreal: Live-action and green-screen digital cinematography, motion-capture data imposed on virtual actors, key frame and stunning 3D animation sets all combine to create the enhanced production values on Fungus the Bogeyman, a new three-hour family miniseries commissioned by CBC and BBC.

Montreal: Supported in a major way by the public at the Cannes Film Festival, Denys Arcand’s Les Invasions Barbares (The Barbarian Invasions) returned home triumphant with two major awards, the prize for best screenplay (Arcand) as well as best actress for Marie-Josee Croze. The remarkable reception at Cannes, ‘a thrill’ to quote Cinemaginaire producer Denise Robert, turned to near rapture when Miramax Films announced it had acquired U.S. rights.

Montreal: Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm and Film Tonic have concluded a ‘strategic partnership,’ with all Tonic product henceforth to be distributed by Alliance Atlantis in all media.

After eight years as the face and voice of producers, Elizabeth McDonald is moving back from the spotlight. The long-serving president and CEO of the CFTPA will step down in late August.

In What About Tomorrow? a report on Canadian French-language drama prepared for the CRTC and Telefilm Canada, author Guy Fournier writes, ‘As far as the CRTC is concerned, readers will probably not be surprised that the television broadcasters I surveyed regard [the commission] as a necessary evil in general, [and] a genuine nuisance when it comes to television ‘content.”

The Alliance for Children and Television honored Canada’s top English-language children’s programs at a gala Awards of Excellence ceremony held June 2 at the CBC Broadcast Centre’s Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto.

Organizers of the Innoversity Creative Summit 2003 ‘made it’ through the two-day conference held in Toronto May 22-23 with a better-than-expected turnout given the current situation in Toronto and its nagging SARS scare.

One day before the Canadian Independent Film & Video Fund was to name its latest round of recipients, the Department of Canadian Heritage announced the fund was being cut by $250,000, a major blow to independent documentary filmmakers who depend on the money to finance and finish their projects.

Sharing in the production funding pain, documentary makers saw the largesse of the Canadian Television Fund’s Licence Fee Program dwindle 25% to $16.5 million in the spring round announced May 27.

Rogers Cable has signed an agreement with MGM Home Entertainment to add MGM films to its video-on-demand offering, making Rogers the first Canadian cable company to make a VOD deal with a major Hollywood studio.

Audrey Mehler’s The Boys of Buchenwald was named Best of the Festival at the annual Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival, held May 22-25 in Yorkton, SK. The doc also won for best history documentary and garnered three craft awards for direction (Audrey Mehler), editing (Debra Rurak) and original music (Patric Caird).