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Peacock promotes Suter
NBC Universal has upped Ron Suter, its longtime Canadian sales head, to spearhead…
Actors nominate Baby, Nurse
The Baby Formula and Nurse.Fighter.Boy earned multiple nominations for its cast as ACTRA Toronto…
Boll goes to Africa
Uwe Boll is doing Darfur — and has signed Kristanna Loken and Billy Zane to star in Janjaweed…
Casters having to adapt to new fiscal realities
Until not so long ago, Canadian conventional and specialty TV was where industry fortunes were won and lost.
Forging a future for digital media
When the CRTC convenes its hearing on Canadian broadcasting in new media starting Feb. 17 in Gatineau, QC, expect to hear private broadcasters looking for flexibility, niche players looking for mobile access, and producers looking for funding.
Editor’s Note: The end of an era
This is it. This is the last newsprint issue of Playback magazine. After more than 23 years of ink-stained fingers, we’re officially going glossy. We’ll remain your biweekly source in print for all things Canadian media, but now you won’t have to wash your hands after reading us.
The Small Screen: Canadian content creep
Any remaining skepticism about U.S. network TV demand for Canadian dramas, either as direct orders or coproductions, should be dispelled by Fox International Channels executive Sharon Tal Yguado.
The Big Screen: Big in France with a French French accent
It was 2005 and the sun was shining out of Marc-André Grondin’s ass. C.R.A.Z.Y., in which Grondin starred as the ‘Z’ in a dysfunctional family of five boys, was the highest-grossing film of the year, earning more than $6 million.
Inifinity Features: honoring Vince’s legacy
District 319. It used to be a derelict abandoned theater, skirting the edge of Vancouver’s Chinatown in the heart of Canada’s poorest postal code, a half-block away from the corner of Main and Hastings – aka Pain and Wastings.
People
• Heather Allin is now at the helm of ACTRA Toronto, following her election as the union’s new president for a two-year term. She takes over for Karl Pruner.
Sold!
• Seville Pictures has picked up the Canadian and U.K. distribution rights to Quebec director Daniel Roby’s Piecemeal, a teen horror pic now being prepped for a fall 2009 shoot by Montreal-based Zone Films and TCB Film.
Talent
• Ali Liebert has been cast in both Sook-Yin Lee’s Year of the Carnivore and the upcoming Cuba Gooding Jr. feature Hardwired. Liebert – who will also be seen this spring in the ensemble cast of the CBS drama Harper’s Island – will play a ‘babe with a brain’ lead role in Carnivore, appearing with Cristin Milioti and Will Sasso. The picture marks Lee’s directing debut and is a B.C./Ontario coproduction by Screen Siren Pictures and The Film Farm. In Hardwired, the Vancouver-based actress will appear alongside Gooding and Val Kilmer. Liebert is represented by Elena Kirschner at Red Management. Her credits include Dead Like Me, The 4400 and a recurring role on Kyle XY.
The Burning Question
To hear economists tell it, the world has been ending since September. And though many in the industry have, no doubt, been stung by the world’s money woes, others have not yet had to line up outside a soup kitchen, or move into a cardboard box. So we ask:
Egoyan snares Neeson, Moore
Atom Egoyan has lined up a stellar cast for his next film project, Chloe, which will begin shooting in Toronto on Feb. 9. Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried, the ingenue from Mamma Mia! and a lead in the HBO series Big Love, are starring in the erotic thriller based on the 2003 French production Nathalie.
Doc rethinks Hollywood Indians
Ernie Webb recalls watching western movies when he was a child growing up in the James Bay region. ‘We always cheered for the cowboys,’ says Webb, who is an aboriginal, ‘even when they were killing Indians.’ He says many native people end up learning all sorts of erroneous things about their own culture via Hollywood’s twisted representations.
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