Top 20 TV Programs tracks ratings for the top 20 television shows in Canada for the period May 1-7, 2006.

Philippe Falardeau’s dramedy Congorama – about the unusual friendship between a Belgian and Quebecois man – will close the Director’s Fortnight this month in Cannes, making good on a goal set by producer Luc Déry.

The Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival will expand its workshops and introduce a pitch session to bolster business opportunities when the four-day fest returns to the southern Saskatchewan town on May 25.

Amid pink flamingos, strobe lights and go-go girls, a rosy picture was painted at ShowCanada 2006 of a surging box office after a dismal 2005.

Big Bang Pictures, the mobile division of Toronto’s The Nightingale Company, has added the racy mobile series The Retired Porn Producer to its roster. The series is a comedic take on advice shows, with tips from an anonymous fellow with 30 years of experience in the skin flick business.

Here I sit at some ungodly hour, poring over the 1,500-or-so pieces of information that comprise Playback’s 18th Annual Report on Independent Production, trying to make some sense out of the current state of production in Canada. Although I’m bleary-eyed, a few things seem clear.

M. Michelle Nadon is managing director of MediaINTELLIGENCE, which offers full-service training and recruitment for the Canadian media and culture employment markets. Michael Taylor is project manager for Rogers Promotions.

Playback readers didn’t think The Rocket would score too big outside of Quebec. In response to an online poll question asking readers what kind of box office they expected for the Maurice Richard biopic in English Canada, 36% said they thought it would make less than $1 million, while 24% chose $2 million-plus, 23% voted for $1 million-plus, and 17% thought $4 million-plus.

Shaftesbury Films will see its first project with Kelly Rowan go to air this month, just as a second starts shooting in rural Ontario. The MOW Eight Days to Live, which Rowan (The O.C., The Man Who Saved Christmas) exec produced with the Toronto prodco, is set to air May 28 on CTV and will be followed by In God’s Country, a TV movie about Mormon polygamy.

The creators of 6Teen have reteamed on a new cartoon series and hope to see Total Drama Island on Teletoon sometime in 2007. The 26 x 30 Flash-animated series recently got the green light from the cable channel and is looking to start storyboarding by later this month, animating by late summer.

Breakthrough Films & Television has wrapped its MOW The Wives He Forgot after a three-week shoot in Toronto with stars Molly Ringwald and Mark Humphrey (Cruel but Necessary). The former teen idol stars as a lawyer who falls for a mysterious amnesia patient, Humphrey, who is put on trial for bigamy when his multiple wives come looking for him. Mario Azzopardi (Savage Messiah) directs under exec producers Ira Levy and Peter Williamson and producer Paula Smith.

* The Warner Bros.-backed horror feature Sanctum has stalled shortly after it was to get underway at Cinespace Studios in Toronto, and is now in turnaround, hoping to be picked up by another studio.

Calgary: Samuel L. Jackson, Alan Alda and Josh Hartnett (Sin City) are headed to Calgary to star in the Yari Film Group/Phoenix Pictures effort Resurrecting the Champ, according to Variety. The film, scheduled to begin shooting in mid-June, is based on a series of articles by Los Angeles Times reporter J.R. Moehringer, who befriended a homeless man claiming to be a former boxing champion. Champ will be directed by Rod Lurie (Commander in Chief, The Contender) and produced by Bob Yuri, Marc Frydman (The Contender), and the Phoenix trio of Arnold Messer, Brad Fischer and Mike Medavoy.

Father Stan Fortuna raps, plays jazz guitar and travels the world – bringing a heavily Bronx-accented message of peace, self-respect and spirituality to kids as far afield as Portugal, Uganda and the Caribbean.

Two new sitcoms are garnering solid ratings, with hopes running high about their futures.