Glenn O’Farrell has been appointed the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ new president and CEO, effective Jan. 7, 2002.

Alliance Atlantis Communications’ Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows was second only to The West Wing in total wins at this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards.

Montreal’s: Productions Tele-Action’s The Last Chapter is set in the violent and double-dealing world of outlaw biker gangs and is an original six-hour double-shoot, with broadcast set for March on both Radio-Canada and CBC. It is filming over 75 days on location in Montreal and Toronto from July 30 to Nov. 19
Screenwriter Luc Dionne’s (Omerta) tale chronicles the expansion of The Triple Sixers biker gang. The gang’s domain stretches from Halifax to Vancouver, with one important omission – no chapters in the lucrative Ontario market.
Leading players include Michael Ironside and Roy Dupuis as gang leaders and longtime friends, Marina Orsini, Celine Bonnier, Dan Bigras, veteran actor Michel Forget as a detective specialized in criminal gangs, and Dom Fiore as the mob godfather.

The newest feature film offering from writer/director Deepa Mehta (Earth) is currently in production in Toronto. Bollywood/Hollywood sees Mehta at the helm of what producer David Hamilton calls the director’s take on a romantic comedy. It is about an NRI (non-resident Indian) family living in Toronto and the influences Bollywood films continue to have on their lives in Canada.
‘Bollywood is a huge industry and people that are from India follow it,’ says Hamilton. ‘A lot of what happens in Bollywood films influences how people live their lives here.’
Hamilton is producing with Bob Wertheimer under the banner Bollywood/Hollywood Productions. Mehernaz Lentin is line producer on the six-week shoot that wraps Nov. 12.

Film and television training is not limited to high school grads. Like a pack of Rodney Dangerfields, seasoned members of the Canadian biz, from crew members to corporate honchos, are heading back to school to help polish their skills and keep fresh in an ever-changing industry.

Jay Switzer, president, Chum Television, Toronto

To varying degrees, film schools in Canada provide students with the fundamentals of film theory and a solid base in the practical side: writing, shooting and editing. But few secondary institutions afford students firsthand experience in the essentials of getting a film financed – the biggest ongoing challenge within the Canadian film industry.

Howard Rosen is CEO/executive producer of Roadhouse Productions in Toronto, where he oversees the development, production, financing and servicing of feature/cable films, television series, multi-camera live events, commercials and broadband interactive projects.

Montreal: Both sides, producers and performers, agreed to put a little water in their wine in the latest IPA negotiations. With the prospect of a deepening recession and already reduced production levels in Canada, the negotiators for ACTRA and the producers associations kept the list of issues to a minimum, delivering a renewed Independent Production Agreement in a remarkably short five days.

Vancouver: In the mid-1990s, ACFC West seemed to be in its death throes – its Toronto affiliate ACFC had succumbed to the onslaught of the rapidly expanding IATSE union and it was waging its own war against IATSE Local 891 at home. Then IATSE 891, Teamsters Local 155 and IATSE Local 669 combined to form the BC Council of Film Unions, secured an exclusive territory of high-end production, and effectively squeezed the undercapitalized ACFC into the low-budget market.

NABET 700’s business manager Ross Leslie says the biggest issue currently facing the union’s approximately 1,250 film technicians is the general slowdown in the production industry.

Vancouver: A prime example of IATSE’s culture of home rule – where each of the approximately 25 locals works autonomously and implements its own initiatives – is a new promotional campaign by IATSE Local 667, eastern Canada’s camera unit.