‘It came out of left field,’ Norman Jewison says of his Board of Governors Award from the American Society of Cinematographers, being presented February 16 in L.A. ‘Every year they choose a director or producer that they think has done particularly well, I guess, by the cinematographers that have been involved in their work. And God knows I have worked with a lot of them.’

In this tight money market, producers are looking for more ways to tie a production’s equity, including equity held by public agencies such as Telefilm Canada, to private sources of financing and lending. Many look to augment budgets already supported by Telefilm or the Canadian Television Fund with equity financing from Canada’s private production and development funds, which on an aggregate basis invest up to $30 million a year. In the past year, there has also been an increase in the number of producers with Canadian equity financing looking for some measure of gap financing on more exportable projects.

Private-sector funds were set up with regulatory approval to meet a specific or niche requirement: Shaw for children’s programming; Rogers for documentaries, specialty TV programs and interim financing; and The Harold Greenberg Fund for features.

Despite the widespread economic uncertainty, Zoom, Telefilm Canada’s European newsletter, recently reported significant growth across the EU video market, an increasingly important source of production financing.

Even though the total volume of film and TV production in Canada last year matched the level of economic activity in 2001, the latest trending report in Profile 2003, to be released Feb. 6 at the CFTPA’s Prime Time conference in Ottawa, indicates ’02 was the first year in many that the production industry recorded little or no growth.

Having established a presence in every province west of Ontario, Regina-based Minds Eye Entertainment president and CEO Kevin DeWalt says the company’s growth aspirations will see future expansion into Ontario, with the potential of an IPO in the ‘medium to long term.’

Anyone looking for the direction Robert Lantos and Jeff Sackman plan to take their new partnership at Thinkfilm need look no further than Sackman’s previous success at CFP and ultimately Lions Gate, which acquired CFP in 1997.
In fact, one need look no further than Sackman’s present venture at Thinkfilm even before Lantos acquired a 50% stake in the Toronto-based distributor. That’s because Thinkfilm, with an office in New York, was set up to play both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.

Somewhere between boom and bust lies NATPE 2003, say organizers and attendees of last month’s annual TV trade show in New Orleans. Attendance was down for the second straight year but business in The Big Easy was up, albeit sporadically.

It ends right where it all began – in Winnipeg, where Israel (Izzy) Asper, while chairing his last annual meeting, announced that he’s called it quits… well almost, anyway.

Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s the biggest runaway production in Canadian movie history.

Moses Znaimer, CHUM vice-president of corporate development and president of its Citytv, shocked the TV world Jan. 21, announcing via e-mail to CHUM executives that he would be ‘on sabbatical’ from the Toronto broadcasting giant for several months.

Montreal: The smash box-office hit Seraphin – Un homme et son peche (Cite-Amerique) leads all Prix Jutra finalists this year with nominations in nine categories, including best film, best lead actress (Karine Vanasse), best lead actor (Pierre Lebeau and Roy Dupuis), best photography (Jean Lepine) and best original music (Michel Cusson).