Montreal: Local distribs are expressing optimism the brand new AMC Cinemas 22 megaplex will become a welcome downtown venue for Canadian and indie movie fare, including more commercial French-language films….

The second annual Toronto Documentary Forum, held as part of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (May 1-6), has come and gone for another year, and although no money has changed hands yet, organizers speak in glowing terms of its…

The eighth annual Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival wrapped with an awards ceremony on May 6, where East Coast survivor docs rang in strong for Canada….

Montreal: The Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund awarded just under $3.1 million in grants and licence fee top-ups in 2000, a 50% increase over the previous year, according to the fund’s recently released annual report….

Montreal: Several new Canadian films are up for relatively wide theatrical releases, including the ensemble comedy Nuit de Noces, which will be launched on 70 screens June 1, and the teen horror flick Ginger Snaps, which opened across Canada on 84…

Cannes, France: The future of Montreal-based Cinar is as changeable as Riviera weather in April, but the president of Cinar Europe, David Ferguson, says production is chugging full steam ahead. …

Calgary: The big winner at the 27th AMPIA Awards, held in Calgary April 28, was Gary Burns’ directorial debut waydowntown, which walked off with a slew of Rosies, including the prestigious Best of Festival award….

CanWest $4M bonanza…

As if directing a feature film was not hard enough, consider Andrea Dorfman, working out of both her native Toronto and her adopted home of Halifax. Dorfman was not only director on Parsley Days, but director of photography, screenwriter and coproducer as well.
The film follows pregnant Kate (Megan Dunlop), who has fallen out of love with longtime boyfriend Ollie (Michael Leblanc), curiously the ‘king of contraception.’ Not willing to wait three weeks for a clinical abortion, Kate enlists the help of a herbalist friend who recommends an ‘all-parsley, all-the-time’ diet to induce a miscarriage. But after a few weeks – and a lot of parsley – Kate makes the clinical appointment.

Shaftesbury Films was a big winner in this spring’s LFP round of financing with at least four hot new projects, but an oversubscribed EIP has left the producer dangling on at least one new MOW.
Scar Tissue, which received more than $450,000 in LFP funding, was omitted from the EIP envelope, leaving Shaftesbury to look for alternative financing.
The MOW, in development with the CBC, is based on the Michael Egnotiaf book about a family battling Alzheimer’s Disease.
Dennis Foon is scripting the $3-million project, with Eric Till attached to direct and R.H. Thomson set to star.
Christina Jennings is producing and Oasis has international distribution.

Halifax’s imX communications has officially started production on its ambitious series of five digital feature films known as Seats 3a and 3c. Production began at the end of April on the first of the five, Dragonwheel, which producer Dean Perlmutter says should be wrapped by the end of May.
The premise of the series is the relationships born of a chance meeting of two people on an airplane. In Dragonwheel, Gloria, the manager of a boy band, is seated next to Sherman, a soon-to-be-married custodian and supposedly the band’s biggest fan. A relationship develops between the two in the air and on the ground as they travel to Mexico, Barcelona and Tokyo. What unfolds between credits, as with each of the films, changes the lives of both principal characters.

Vancouver: Up to a half-dozen more local feature filmmakers will get British Columbia Film funding assistance in the next 12 months now that the board of directors has decided how to dole out new money given by the province in March. The NDP government, prior to the election call this month, gave B.C. Film $5 million to support more production over the next three years.
In fiscal 2001/02, which began April 1, B.C. Film will use $2 million to bolster its equity-financing envelope by $1.75 million and its development/marketing/skills development programs by $250,000.