Montreal: Box-office expectations are high for the teen vampire comedy Karmina II: L’Enfer de Chabot. The new Gabriel Pelletier (La Vie Apres l’Amour) film, simply called K2, is in post and editing after a heavy 36-day shoot. Yves Pelletier wrote the screenplay and Nicole Robert of Go Films produced on a $4.1-million budget. The movie’s exec producers are Guy Gagnon and Patrick Roy of distrib Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm. A major Quebec-wide release is set for Friday, July 13.

Vancouver: No problem qualifying for Canadian content for the new feature The Rhino Brothers: it’s about hockey and how it disrupts a family.
The $850,000 full-length feature is using the new Sony HD24P cameras. It’s an initiative that has the support of Rainmaker Digital Pictures (which will do all the post-production at ‘aggressively priced’ rates) and camera supplier William F. White, which provided the hd cameras for a fraction of the regular rate.

When Jennie Montford left The Players Film Company she began what she calls her ‘travels to find new employment.’ In those travels, around last August, the veteran producer had a ‘lovely two-hour meeting with [Partners’ head] Don McLean.’…

A new Vancouver spot shop, Arc ii, has joined the handful of West Coast commercial producers. …

The focus of this regular section is on agencies in Canada. Looking for agency business strategies and creative teams’ secret weapons? We tell all in Ad Missions….

Las Vegas, NV: Amidst the tumult of flashing neon lights, oxygen-pumped betting pits and garishly-garnished hotels that is Las Vegas, a record 19,834 natpe attendees logged many hours in taxi queues to get to and from the convention centre where some…

Vancouver: A leading immigration lawyer in Vancouver says the number of inquiries from Americans in the entertainment business seeking resident status in Canada has doubled in the past two years….

The fish on the butcher’s block didn’t get a supporting actor nod, but you could say the scaly narrator of Denis Villeneuve’s Maelstrom took this year’s Genie Awards hook, line and sinker. …

One of the best kept secrets on the West Coast commercial production scene is ready to emerge into the wider public eye and become a major player in the Canadian spot trade. Says who? Actually – Sezwho. …

In what is reportedly his only songwriting credit, Al Waxman wrote, ‘I am Canada/ I’m a lover of life/ I’m a dreamer of dreams’ in a 1978 song called Gotta Hear You Say It Too….

Two Toronto-based commercial production companies are taking chances on a pair of new, virtually untested directors, as Kyle Davison signs with Sparks Productions and Park Bench signs with The Big Film Company….

There was a time, not too long ago, when the word culture was easily defined. Besides being a main ingredient in yogurt, culture included such sophisticated pastimes as the opera, the theatre and on a good day, Canadian film and television….