* Kirstine Layfield has been appointed senior VP of lifestyle programming for the broadcasting division of Alliance Atlantis. As of Feb. 24, Layfield assumes overall programming responsibility for Life Network, HGTV, Food Network Canada and Discovery Health Channel.

Vancouver: The West Coast often ranks high on the list of the United Nation’s best places to live. Now Vancouver is topping the list of locations for indie filmmakers, according to the third annual ranking by L.A.-based MovieMaker Magazine. Toronto rates second, beating other locations such as New York and Los Angeles.

ACTRA Toronto has announced the nominees for the return of the ACTRA Awards in celebration of the organization’s sixtieth anniversary. Canadian actor and playwright Gordon Pinsent, a three-time Genie Award and five-time Gemini Award winner, will be presented with ACTRA Toronto’s inaugural Award of Excellence.

Air Canada does not show enough homegrown movies or TV shows and should be regulated by the CRTC, according to Peter Rowe, president of the Ontario chapter of the Directors Guild of Canada, in a Jan. 30 speech to this year’s Genie nominees.

Another player entered the lobbying arena last month when Our Public Airwaves, a new advocacy group calling for more funding for public broadcasting, debuted in Ottawa with an open letter to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

The Alliance for Children in Television will recognize producers and creators of children’s television in Canada at its English-language Awards of Excellence June 2 in Toronto. The awards have been restructured to alternate with French-language awards each year.

Ottawa: No one can say CBC executive director of network programming Slawko Klymkiw is not a good sport.

Rhonda Dyce is a Vancouver-based research analyst covering the media and content sector for investment firm Raymond James.

Here’s a plan to keep the mood upbeat despite a bad-news year as hundreds of Canadian producers, broadcasters and other industry bigwigs gather for the annual CFTPA conference: Hold the conference in Ottawa in February, throw an opening night cocktail party at the legislature and line delegates up outside for 40 minutes in -30 degree temperatures on windswept Parliament Hill.

Fans of Bruce McDonald’s early hard-rawkin’ hits like Highway 61 and Hard Core Logo are in for a treat with Maximum Rock n Roll, a new feature, due to shoot this fall in Toronto, in the tradition of his gritty and comical breakthroughs of the 1990s.
‘It’s all about sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, violence, twin babies in a briefcase,’ says producer Marco Pecota of Veni Vidi Vici Motion Pictures.

Vancouver: Perhaps Tarzan’s jungle yodel will roust up a few more pilots for Vancouver, which so far has few TV hopefuls confirmed this year, but apparently lots of interest.
Director/producer David Nutter (The X-Files, Dark Angel, Smallville) is once again behind a camera in Vancouver for production of the one-hour WB Network pilot of Tarzan (working title).

While the rest of us have been freezing our butts off, Pete Luckett, host of Ocean Entertainment’s Food Hunter, has been gallivanting down south, shooting season two of the cooking/travel series. Each episode focuses on a different country and its local delights: avocados in Mexico, snow peas in Guatemala and grapes in Chile, to be followed by a trip to Tahiti for vanilla and Hawaii for pineapples.