Vancouver: Production on the second season of Warner Bros.’ digital 2D animated series Mucha Lucha begins in May at Vancouver’s Bardel Entertainment.

Montreal: The new Point de Mire series La Grande Ourse is being billed as Quebec’s first primetime fantasy melodrama, a cross between the supernaturalism of The X-Files and the small-town creepiness of Twin Peaks. Produced on a budget of $8 million, and commissioned by Radio-Canada, the 10-hour series is only the second Quebec drama series originated in the 24p HD format, after Lance et Compte – 15 ans plus tard.

Filmmakers Damion Nurse and John Buchan last month raised the flag of their new production company, On the Stroll Productions, with news of its debut feature film Sugar, now shooting on locations in and around Toronto with high-wattage locals Sarah Polley, Maury Chaykin and Saul Rubinek. The $500,000 pic is based on the short stories by area media darling Bruce LaBruce and was adapted for the screen by director John Palmer (Wolf Boy) and Todd Klinck. Jennfier Jonas (Perfect Pie) is exec producer.

Montreal: Principal photography on the one-hour dance adaptation Amelia, the latest creation from internationally renowned choregrapher/director Edouard Lock and Montreal contemporary dance company La La La Human Steps, has wrapped after 19 days. Lock’s new stage production premiered in Prague and Paris last fall and in Montreal this winter. The post-production, edit and special visual F/X are being done in HD at the Media Principia studios.

Montreal: The 8th Montreal Jewish Film Festival, May 8-15, opens with a gala screening of German director Caroline Link’s Nowhere in Africa, winner of this year’s Academy Award for best foreign-language picture.

Much has been made about the decline in film and TV production subsequent to Sept. 11 and its residual impact on the post sector. But many insiders prognosticated production numbers returning to their former glory. The consensus now is that that will not happen, so post shops, including those specializing in audio, are going to have to expand their traditional core business to survive.

Tattersall Casablanca prepares for Origins

Victor Davies recalls that it was in a Nashville recording studio when he was awakened to music as an emotional glue bonding viewers to a movie or TV program.

Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution and sister distributor Odeon Films will unspool their most ambitious quarter ever for English-Canadian movies this coming fall.
Three new films are slated for wide releases, starting with a Canadian Thanksgiving release by Odeon of Nicolas Kendall’s The Great Goose Caper (Voice Pictures), a family film targeting young girls and mothers starring Chevy Chase and Joan Plowright.

Hockey Night in Canada stayed on the air. So did the Oscars, Friends and almost all the other big-draw shows on Canada’s big three networks. Contrary to what many had predicted, the war with Iraq did not open with a massive bombing campaign, did not pre-empt many shows, and has not, so far, caused massive revenue loss from round-the-clock news coverage.

A 92-page shot was fired across the bows of Canada’s broadcasters and the CRTC this month, when the Canadian Coalition of Audio-Visual Unions released a hefty study of the much-discussed crisis in English-language TV drama. The report cites significant drops in production and scheduling of homemade drama following the introduction of the CRTC’s 1999 Television Policy, and calls on the feds to ‘throw a life-line’ to CCAU’s 50,000 producers, directors, actors, writers and technicians.

With the injection of $145 million in new capital and an ambitious rollout of services scheduled for the fall, Calgary-based Craig Broadcast Systems is reorganizing its conventional and specialty operations under the brand name Craig Media Inc.