Shawn Doyle and Kristen Thomson took home this year’s ACTRA Awards, along with Gordon Pinsent, who snagged the Award of Excellence for his long list of achievements.

Canada could, with luck, be well represented in the Oscar spotlight this spring. Alliance Atlantis Communications, Thinkfilm, Gordon Sim and David Lee of the Chicago crew, and Winnipeg-born indie phenom Nia Vardalos have scored nominations for the 75th Academy Awards, to be presented March 23 in Los Angeles.

The Canadian Association of Broadcasters Task Force on Cultural Diversity is about to embark on what it is terming ‘one of the most comprehensive studies on cultural diversity ever done, anywhere,’ with the goal of finding out what minority groups want to see on TV and how to give it to them.

Workflow at three-month-old Trace Pictures has been so heavy that senior creative director Justin Stephenson, formerly of Toronto’s Cuppa Coffee Animation, hasn’t had time to organize a hard launch for the new Toronto animation house. The ambitious but successful business plan lies in creating unique visuals using hybrid animation styles and actively targets clients on both sides of the border.

Neither sub-zero temperatures nor theatres in the snow will keep Canadians away from a film fest that’s all about us. The National Screen Institute’s FilmExchange Canadian film festival presents its all-Canadian program March 4-8 in Winnipeg.

Submission forms for Shots & Chasers are available online at www.playbackmag.com/onthespot. For complete details of these and other jobs go to the OTS website.

Alliance Atlantis has appointed Judson Martin to the position of senior executive VP and chief financial officer. He will be working with the chairman and CEO and the board of directors.

Rick Mischel is the new CEO of Mainframe Entertainment, following a Feb. 25 announcement by the company’s board of directors. Formerly president and COO of L.A.-based The Harvey Entertainment Company, Mischel will oversee all aspects of the Vancouver animation house.

* Francois Messier has joined broadcaster Reseau TQS (Television Quatre Saisons) as its new general manager, news. Messier previously worked in news with Radio-Canada and since June 1999 held the position of VP programming with Reseau des Sports.

Twenty-nine screenplays have made the final cut for the Writers Guild of Canada’s Top Ten Awards.

On Feb. 6, ‘the motion picture industry lost one of its best,’ says Ken Kurz of his father Gerd Kurz, who died of heart failure at the age of 61.

Ryerson University’s Radio and Television Arts program has launched an innovative website for aspiring screenwriters, the byproduct of years of painstaking research by RTA chair Dr. Robert Gardner.