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Barker exits Shaftesbury
Battle for control at company ends with Christina Jennings as sole chairman and CEO. Former partner to focus on large-format films
Gas, 22 Minutes lead CSA noms
Changes at the annual writing awards look to put sketch shows back in the running — by counting sitcoms as dramas. Farrell up twice for Corner Gas
Vivafilm dominates box office
French distributor leads the way with debut of Louis Choquette’s boxing drama La ligne brisée
Piracy bust in Toronto
Distributors are cheering and two people have been charged following a series of raids that netted tens of thousands of DVDs
Slice bows first cross-platform series
Developed for broadcast both online and on television, How to Make Love to My Wife debuts with web extras on Slice.ca
Sea Wolf sails into Halifax
HALIFAX: A new adaptation of Jack London’s oceangoing novel The Sea Wolf is launching from the Halifax waterfront, while the feature Noah’s Arc is getting off the ground in town.
Storm Hawks invades GMTV
Series by Vancouver shop Nerd Corps added to U.K. channel’s morning schedule
Ottawa B-team strikes again
Take wrestler-turned-actor The Rock, relocate him to Guadalajara by way of northern Ontario, and divide his fee by about 10,000 (that’s a guess) and you’ll get Ian Hodgkinson, better known to Mexican wrestling fans as El Vampiro Canadienese.
Swank, Carmody attached to Amelia
Computer retailer-turned-producer Ted Waitt has signed Hilary Swank to star as famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart in a biopic set to shoot in Toronto and Nova Scotia.
Max Films revisits ice storm
MONTREAL: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. That’s the mantra of the producers behind Romaine par moins 30 – the story of a Parisian’s first contact with a Canadian winter.
Atta boy!
The Minds Eye Entertainment miniseries The Englishman’s Boy fared respectably on CBC on March 2 and 9. The $11 million period piece, about a scribe (Michael Therriault, left) who befriends an old-time cowboy (Nicholas Campbell) with many stories to tell, attracted an average audience of 684,000. The DVD was slated to hit stores on March 11. Meanwhile, Regina’s Minds Eye is wrapping the Canada/France copro feature Walled In, starring Mischa Barton and Deborah Kara Unger
TV producers eye slate financing
Canadian producers who have recently landed homegrown drama sales to U.S. networks have paved the way for slate financing of TV shows.
Financial services in Canada
The following is the 2008 edition of Playback’s annual digest of key financial services available to the Canadian independent film and television production industry.
Hidden perks in Bill C-10
The controversial federal bill also promises greater transparency on tax credits and first-time assistance to script development, putting its industry opponents in a bind
New twist on takeout
Calgary’s MoboVivo, together with Joe Media, is bringing episodes of Fixing Dinner to iPods and iPhones
The definitive CDN broadcast and production resource.Over 5,000 company listings!
