MONTREAL: In an era of infotainment, the producers of the award-winning Up the Yangtze have figured out how to finance social-issue auteur docs: they call it the do-it-yourself model.

Director Deepa Mehta and British author Salman Rushdie will collaborate on an adaptation of Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children. Mehta’s longtime producing partner David Hamilton says the duo will start working on the script in March, with an April deadline, adding that he is in discussions with two studios, both of which have expressed interest.

Phil the Alien director/writer/star Rob Stefaniuk begins principal photography in Toronto on Nov. 24 on his sophomore feature Suck, a rock ‘n’ roll vampire comedy from Capri Films.

CTV will begin production on 11 episodes of The Bridge early next year, having promoted the cop drama from MOW to series. Executive producer Adam J. Shully says CTV execs Susanne Boyce and Ivan Fecan saw cuts of the two-hour MOW, which shot in August, very early and ‘liked what they saw.’

Cashing In – a soapy dramatic comedy set to air in the new year on APTN and Global – might be a North American first, a show about Canada’s well-heeled aboriginal elite.

CTV is going into space with Fox TV Studios, the BBC and Germany’s ProSieben to launch the big-budget action-adventure drama Defying Gravity.

Veteran Canadian producer Anne Marie La Traverse says her career has been a slow build to the breakout success of Flashpoint. And the key, she insists, was finally learning to go with her gut when it came to building a successful TV franchise.

The odds had been right for some time that Bill Mustos would one day achieve breakout success with a primetime drama.