Chris Staples is a partner with Rethink in Vancouver

Quality, not quantity, is the best way for Canadian broadcasters to attract audiences, says Telefilm Canada executive director Richard Stursberg, who Nov. 20 called on television’s movers and shakers to rethink their spending and promotional habits.

Vancouver: Nine Telefilm Canada-supported English-language productions reflect the new focus on explicitly commercial films that still deliver distinctively Canadian content, says Telefilm executive director Richard Stursberg.

The National Film Board took one step forward and one step back this past weekend, with the grand opening of NFB Mediatheque, a $1.5-million storefront operation in Toronto that tests the limits of the latest digital technologies while, it is hoped, returning the venerable organization to its roots by bringing together Canadians and their movies.

Award-winning commercial director Tim Hamilton is repped by Avion Films in Toronto, The Institute in L.A. and Tomboy Films in London. Hamilton has also found success directing long form, most notably for his film Truth in Advertising, which screened at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.

David Kent is a partner in the Toronto law firm of McMillan Binch LLP and a member of its Litigation, Knowlaw and Competition Groups.

Welcome to Playback’s annual Year in Review spectacular. This issue, we look back on a year marked by the production industry waiting with quiet anxiety to see if business would recover from a trouble-plagued 2001 and regain the record success of Y2K. The evidence indicates we’re a ways off.

In exclusive clubs, the upstart member is almost always dismissed by the elite as a climber who is overreaching his class, a nuisance, or someone to step on to move even higher up the social register. It’s not until the upstart has the momentum to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them that the club elders really have to rally, sometimes unsuccessfully, to keep the order.

If 2001 was a bad party, then in 2002 the production industry reeled under a long, nasty hangover.

The following are the results of a web poll in which Playback asked readers ‘What was the biggest industry story of 2002?’

The Top 10 Canadian releases in the past 12 months have earned a total of more than $18 million at the domestic box office, according to new data from the Motion Picture Theatre Associations of Canada.

Top grossing films in canada, and top grossing candian films.