MONTREAL: Distrib Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm reports the Charles Biname historical drama Seraphin: Un homme et son peche ranked second overall at the Quebec box office over the Jan. 10-12 weekend, taking in receipts of $326,497 on 76 screens.

Asked their opinion on the biggest surprise among this year’s Genie Awards nominees, 36.7% of Playback readers voted for the omission of Spider for best picture.

In the Jan. 6 issue of Playback, writers Suzette Couture and Carol Hay were credited for penning the teleplay for the CTV MOW Choice (‘CTV makes Choice with abortion pioneer’). In fact, Couture was the sole writer on the project.

Cable is up and satellite is slowing down according to a new study on Canadian digital TV.

Richard Hardacre has been re-elected president of ACTRA Toronto Performers and says he will focus on industry stability and the balance between competition and fairness for members.

Toronto software manufacturer ALIAS|Wavefront has been awarded an Oscar for its Maya 3D professional animation and F/X software.

Keith Behrman is the recipient of this year’s Claude Jutra Award, to be presented at the 23rd Genie Awards on Feb. 13.

Audience tallies for Global Television’s Vancouver-based, supper-hour national news show have surpassed the competition at CBC, according to recent ratings from BBM Canada.

That creaking is the sound of Vancouver’s audio post market growing larger. Veteran producer/composer Wayne Kozak has launched Kozmic Sound.

MONTREAL: Astral Media’s six French-language specialty channels, operating under the Chaines Tele-Astral banner, have seen their audience increase from a combined 7.9 share in 2000 to an 11.1 share in the fall of 2002.

For as long as anyone can remember, we’ve been reporting on agencies ignoring Canadian directors. Anyone who reads OTS on a regular basis would justifiably develop a theory that there is a crisis afoot.

With all this foreign production coming to Canada, it is inevitable that Canadian production companies will occasionally be forced to deal with non-payment from the foreign company.