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3 things you may not know about… Marc Seguin
Marc Seguin, vice-president, feature film and new technology, CFTPA
Straight Up & Down
+ Quebec’s Xavier Dolan has won the inaugural $5,000 ’emerging talent’ award from the Toronto Film Critics Association for his breakthrough film J’ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother). TFCA president and Maclean’s film critic Brian D. Johnson says the 20-year-old writer/director/star’s ‘audacious, deeply personal and flamboyant style of filmmaking’ is exactly the kind of independent cinema championed by Jay Scott, the late critic for whom the prize is named.
PPM effect swells fall ratings
Parent Canwest Global Communications may be embattled and U.S. network influence waning, yet Global Television said it achieved its best fall showing in a half-decade as 2009 drew to a close. Helped by new PPM measurement, Global saw its primetime audiences rise 48% in fall 2009, compared to fall 2008, according to BBM Canada numbers.
TSN breaks recordswith World Juniors
The new year started out with a bang on TSN, which generated an eye-popping 5.3 million viewers for the highly anticipated Canada/U.S. final in the IIHF World Junior Championships.
Kids hit one million
The Kids in the Hall saw boffo numbers for their return to television 15 years after their sketch comedy series ended on CBC.
Skogland to shoot prison drama
Kari Skogland has returned to familiar terrain for her first feature after Fifty Dead Men Walking – Miracle Pictures’ Prisoner of Tehran, a politically charged love story that plays out in a notorious Iranian prison. Skogland, kept busy lately directing TV series like The Listener and Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, will direct the picture based on Marina Nemat’s best-selling 2007 memoir of the same name.
Cancer comedy set for B.C.
Vancouver is set to host Seth Rogen’s serio-comic cancer movie, which is back on track after switching directors in November. The project – untitled, though known as I’m With Cancer – will shoot in Vancouver starting next month for Mandate Pictures.
New Thing coming to Toronto
Pinewood Toronto Studios will host the prequel to John Carpenter’s cult classic The Thing, which is set to shoot under director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. for Universal Pictures. A spokesperson at Universal says the sci-fi horror will start shooting at the former Filmport in March, staying until June.
Earnings up at Astral
A TV ad rebound and guaranteed subscriber fees have been good to Astral Media. The Montreal-based broadcaster posted first-quarter earnings up sharply at $64.6 million, against a profit of $39.6 million in 2008, as it secured an accounting gain of $8.4 million from a change in future tax rates and a reversal of $11.6 million in Part II fee accruals.
Ellis sold for $2.82 million
Knightscove Media has sealed its deal for Ellis Entertainment, agreeing to pay $2.82 million for all shares to the Toronto-based producer/distributor and the rights to its library. Ellis has a 600-title library of wildlife and nature programming, which Knightscove will add to its own family-oriented films and programming. The deal is expected to close by the end of the month.
E1 finalizes Maximum purchase
Entertainment One has issued 1.15 million new class S shares to complete its 2008 acquisition of Maximum Film Distribution and Maximum Film International from Robert Lantos. The Canadian-based media group said the share issue was made in ‘full and final settlement of the deferred consideration’ to acquire Lantos’ Canadian film
Shore Road runs to Park City
New Brunswick-based Shore Road Pictures’ president Gia Milani will be in Park City at the end of January to collect hardware at the 2010 Slamdance Festival. Milani has picked up the 2009 Script Accessible Award, part of the Slamdance Feature Screenplay Competition, for her feature-length screenplay All the Wrong Reasons.
CEP takes a swing at Rogers, CRTC
Union calls for hearing into news cuts. ‘No such authority,’ says regulator
TVA on board Mother and Child
Montreal distributor picks up Canadian rights to Annette Bening-starrer, set for May
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