Babar the Elephant has – with help from his handlers at Nelvana – inked a deal to be this year’s ‘spokeselephant’ for the French Ministry of Ecology. The 75-year old cartoon star will be the face of France’s annual campaign to educate children about the environment, appearing in books and on a series of stamps.

Spending on independent Canadian production remained flat in 2005, growing by less than 2%, according to Playback’s 18th Annual Report on Independent Production. Increased spending on cheaper TV programs in the comedy, variety, magazine, lifestyle and reality formats offset drops in live-action kids, documentary, MOW and miniseries production.

Industry watchers are warning that Hollywood service work could be cut short this summer because of the high loonie – now trading at a 28-year high of 91 cents against the U.S. dollar – even as what looks to be a busy season of would-be blockbusters gets underway at studios in B.C. and Ontario.

Two reports on the events leading up to the famously failed New Montreal FilmFest have arrived at two dramatically different conclusions – with the Quebec government coming down hard on Telefilm Canada and SODEC for mismanagement, while, in its own report, Telefilm insists it did nothing wrong.

L.A.-based Vanguard Animation and IDT Entertainment of New Jersey have launched production of Space Chimps – a US$40-million, CG-animated feature and launching pad of a new 30,000-square-foot studio now under construction in Burnaby, BC.

Pay and specialty channels continued to enjoy good health last year, according to a recent CRTC report that shows an across-the-sector earnings jump of 31.5%, to $549.9 million, and a revenue boost of 6.3% to almost $2.2 million over 2004.

Despite an edition that saw a significant upturn in attendance, an appearance by legendary filmmaker Warner Herzog, a first-time Canadian director winning one of the top prizes, and 100 films to choose from, buyer reaction was mixed at the 2006 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.

Taylor Hill high-fives costar Rebecca Northan in the new… um… sitcom Alice, I Think, set to debut May 26 on The Comedy Network. The 13 x 30 by Omni Film Productions and Slanted Wheel Entertainment comes from a series of books by B.C. author Susan Juby and also stars Carly McKillip.

Blood has sticking power at the Canadian box office, if Silent Hill’s track record is any indication. The horror movie, based on the popular video game of the same name, maintained its top spot among Canadian films at the domestic box office, taking in $406,000 on the May 5 weekend, according to its domestic distrib Odeon Films.

Director Jean-Marc Vallée didn’t realize the special features on the English-Canada DVD release of his French-language hit C.R.A.Z.Y. weren’t subtitled until he read it in the papers.

The Hot Sheet tracks Canadian box-office results for the period April 28-May 4 and DVD sales in Canada for the period April 17-23.

Deepa Mehta’s dramatic feature Water is turning into one of the Canadian success stories of the year, following a wave of releases in the U.S. and overseas.
Producer David Hamilton says he is ‘thrilled’ by the response. ‘I’m not surprised, because I think the film is so strong,’ Hamilton says. ‘This is a very audience-friendly film.’

Budget ignores culture

Veteran CBC newscaster Lorne Saxberg died on May 6 in a snorkeling accident while on vacation in Thailand. He was 48. Saxberg – winner of the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award and one of the first anchors on CBC Newsworld when it launched in 1989 – had been on leave from the CBC for two years, working at NHK in Tokyo.

Fifty thousand dollars and the Shaw Rocket Prize for best children’s TV program went to Being Ian and Studio B Productions on May 3, voted in by a jury of almost 400 grade school students. The Vancouver animation house is donating the prize money to the B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation and the SickKids Foundation in Toronto. ‘We want to share our good fortune with these great organizations,’ said Studio B partner Blair Peters. The prize is funded by the Shaw Rocket Fund, which invested $8.5 million in Canadian children’s programming in 2005.