Toronto International Film Festival Sept. 7-16 Toronto (416) 967-7371 www.bell.ca/filmfest…

* Oct. 18, 1976: The inaugural Festival of Festivals kicks off with a screening of Cousin, Cousine, a popular French comedy….

From the beginning, Toronto International Film Festival founders William Marshall, Henk Van der Kolk and ‘accomplice’ Dusty Cohl were thinking big. After all, their festival dream, groomed on the sunny terraces of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, was to create a…

Toronto director Patricia Rozema is a tiff veteran who first showed up at the festival, film in hand, in 1985 with Passion: A Letter in 16mm, followed in 1987 by the acclaimed opening film I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, in 1991…

Vancouver filmmaker Mina Shum, one of the darlings of the 1994 Toronto festival with her feature film Double Happiness, first hit tiff in 1993 with her short Me, Mom and Mona, and created a buzz again in 1997 with her feature…

Montreal: Distribs Warner Bros. and TVA International (formerly Motion International) are combining on a Friday, Aug. 25 release on 2,600 screens for the Christian Duguay political-action thriller The Art of War….

Vancouver: International Keystone Entertainment of Vancouver has bought 100% of local distributor Red Sky Entertainment for an undisclosed amount….

Hull, Que.: ‘Channel nesting,’ ‘packaging’ and ‘duplication of overhead’ were the scintillating buzzwords as the crtc launched its specialty tv hearings in mid-August and applicants lobbied fiercely for the 10 preferred licences on offer….

MIPCOM 2000 will see the launch of Sextant Entertainment Group’s new international division, to be headed by former cbc international sales exec Thomas Howe. The foreign sales division is one of five ‘stand-alone’ divisions at Vancouver-based Sextant. Key titles on offer…

Montreal: Telescene Film Group has come to a full stop in its use of bank credit for the purposes of production….

Montreal: Industry exhibition and distribution consultant Alex Film has launched a website service featuring up-to-date, bi-weekly box-office reports from 700 screens across Quebec. President Carole Boudreault says efforts are underway to create an identical on-line service for the English-Canadian theatrical market….

Montreal: Cinar Corp. president and ceo Barrie Usher says legal proceedings brought against the company by BRB Group, a Spanish production and distribution company specializing in children’s programs, are completely unfounded….