Montreal: Filming goes over 27 days through Feb. 20, most of it after dark, on Erik Canuel’s second feature film, the romantic comedy Nez Rouge.
The film stars Patrick Huard, Michele Barbara Pelletier and Pierre Lebeau and is being produced on a budget of $3.8 million by Jacques Bonin and Claude Veillet of Films Vision 4. Sylvie Pilon and Sylvie Desrosiers are the screenwriters.

Lawrie Rotenberg, president of Charlottetown’s The Talent Group, has a bad feeling about this. First the Asians dropped out, followed by some U.S. broadcasters. He then got the call from a few other TV outfits in the U.K. One by one, the companies he was supposed to meet with at NATPE have canceled.

They don’t call it a merger for legal reasons, but Film Finances Canada and The Completion Guarantors are joining forces this week, leaving Canada with only one production completion bonding company.
Since 9/11 and the financial boondoggles of companies like Enron, the surety category has been in dramatic flux, causing some insurance carriers to cease their participation in the film business.

One of the drivers plays bass, a soundman is on drums, and star Bruce Greenwood – still in costume, lit by a key light in a cold and otherwise empty soundstage – is belting out the second verse of Hotel California.
‘He formed the band right after we started shooting,’ a PA yells over the thunderous soft rock.

The client may be Mini, but expect big things from the spot that revived the classic automobile brand in Canada now that awards season is upon us. Start with our own Top Spots.

The first thing Martin Shewchuk did when he started as executive VP, executive creative director at J. Walter Thompson, Toronto, was to separate Canadian directors’ reels from ‘all the rest’ in the agency’s library, with Canadian flag stickers and an exclusive Canuck shelf.

The Park City Film Company has nabbed one of Apple Box Productions’ top directors, Randy Diplock, who joins the company as a partner.

MONTREAL: Seville Pictures is positioned for new growth in the home market through both acquisitions and an increase in its Canadian release slate.

Call it the Paul Gross effect, or maybe it’s the power of heavy marketing. But, for whatever reason, ratings for The Eleventh Hour jumped on Jan. 7, when the hour-long CTV drama scored some of its highest numbers – playing strongly in the key 25-54 demographic.

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.