In the next five months, two international events will take place which could help drag commercial production out of its current state of malaise: the Winter Olympics and the World Cup of soccer.

Bob Kennedy is a senior partner in Flashcut Editing, Toronto, and chair of the PVR subcommittee for CPAT.

With the majority of Canada’s distribution operations falling under the control of Alliance Atlantis, the time is more than ripe for a player as well backed and prolific in international sales as Chum Television International to enter the field of third-party distribution.

Toronto’s Industry Films has signed two new California-based directors in Melodie McDaniel and Maggie Zackheim for exclusive representation in Canada.

NewNew Films

Corus lays out Women’s Programming Fund

Ever since I started covering the Canadian production and broadcasting industry, some three years ago, the theme of convergence has been at the forefront of almost every conference and major industry news story we’ve been involved with. While industry players struggled to develop the technology and business plans to implement convergence strategies, I was busy as a Playback staff writer trying to figure out the meaning of this 50-cent word.

The $5-million Canada/U.K. coproduction The War Bride has been chosen among the five top Genie contenders as the best picture of the year by Playback poll respondents.

* Janet Yale, president and CEO of the Canadian Cable Television Association, has been appointed chair of the CTF board of directors.

Paula Parker, VP of programming and production for children’s television at Corus Entertainment, has resigned her position to spend time with her family.

A year-old initiative by ACTRA that opened the door for actors to work on independent films at below scale has swung shut.

Toronto-based adbeast’s online common operating platform for the advertising industry has only been operational for less than a year, but it has already generated quite a buzz amongst post houses.