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New content team in place at Canwest
Canwest Broadcasting late last month announced a new content team, with Christine Shipton and Karen Gelbart in charge of original programming.
People
• Entertainment One has named Rainer Grupe as VP of filmed entertainment. Grupe will work on the Toronto distributor’s international expansion plans and will oversee overseas content strategies for territories including the U.S, the U.K., and Benelux.
Sold!
• Maximum Films International has picked up the international sales rights to the Sundance prize-winner Trouble the Water, a doc about post-Katrina New Orleans. The Toronto outfit has also picked up international rights to Shirley Barrett’s South Solitary, a period romance set to shoot later this year with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Paul Bettany, and Amy Redford’s The Guitar, starring Saffron Burrows.
Shaftesbury wraps ‘grueling’ Summit
Shaftesbury wraps ‘grueling’ Summit
Two-parter about a bio-terror attack for Global and CBC is in post after seven weeks in the U.K., Ecuador, northern Ontario and Jamaica
By Marise Strauss
Old media meets new in Paris 1919
Filmmaker Paul Cowan (Westray, The Peacekeepers) was in Paris this month with producers Gerry Flahive of the National Film Board and Paul Saadoun of France’s 13 Production, recreating history for the ambitious doc Paris 1919.
Girard pursues Happiness
Two Quebec producers hope to cash in on the centuries-old antagonism between the people of la belle province and their cousins across the Atlantic with their upcoming flick Le bonheur de Pierre (Pierre’s Happiness), which stars two of French-language cinema’s most beloved actors: Quebec’s Rémy Girard and France’s Pierre Richard.
Teletoon gets Stoked
Fresh TV has started production on its new 13-ep surfing series Stoked, along with another 13 eps of 6Teen and 26 eps of Total Drama Action, a sequel to Total Drama Island, following orders from Teletoon.
Dreaming of Genie – ratings, that is
Solving the conundrum that is how to maximize ratings for Canada’s film awards is like cracking the Da Vinci Code. Yet some of the best minds in the TV industry are working on it right now, encouraging Canadians to tune in to the Genies on March 3.
Q&A with Academy CEO Sara Morton
Genies benefit from BAFTAs and Oscars
Panel gives edge to Away from Her
Five movie critics cast their votes for the top prize:
Tracey Fragments comes together via Oscar nod for Page
There’s nothing fragmented about the attention Bruce Macdonald’s The Tracey Fragments is getting these days.
Shorts go online
An elderly woman in the initial stages of Alzheimer’s disease desperately tries to record her life before she forgets it, in Regarding Sarah, by Vancouver writer/director Michelle Porter and producer Amy Belling. It is one of five films competing in the best live-action short drama category.
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