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Briefs
AAC reports revenue gains
Oscars point the way
The 78th Annual Academy Awards provided another strong showcase for the Canadian production industry. It also provided a forceful reminder of what Canada’s role in the global film business can be, and how CAVCO should rethink its definition of ‘Canadian.’
CBC makes pact with the devil to pay the mortgage
Arthur Lewis is executive director of Our Public Airwaves, an advocacy group dedicated to the revitalization of public broadcasting in Canada.
What can the commissioner do?
I have spent over 25 years in various film- and television-related industries. After reading your article on Toronto Mayor David Miller’s interest in the film industry (Playback, March 6), which has only come about now that the mayoralty race is just around the corner, I must ask the mayor and his new film commissioner, Karen Thorne-Stone, how they plan on recreating the magical 30-cent gap between Canadian and the U.S. dollar? I didn’t think the mayor of Toronto, or the film commissioner, had those powers.
Playback Readership Poll Results
Well, if they didn’t watch, who did? In an online poll of Playback readers asking ‘Do you plan to watch the broadcast of the Genie party on your local CHUM station?’ 85% of respondents voted no, while 15% indicated yes.
Correction
Loopmedia is providing broadcast design work for the program Fine Living for Scripps Networks. Incorrect information appeared in a story in the March 6 issue.
McDonald wraps Tracey Fragments
Bruce McDonald has shot and wrapped his latest feature, ending a 14-day stay around Hamilton and Brantford, ON for the long-awaited The Tracey Fragments.
The picture – on McDonald’s ‘to do’ list for several years – has the increasingly bankable Ellen Page (X-Men: The Last Stand, Hard Candy) in the lead as a traumatized teen girl who spends most of the story riding on the back of a city bus, naked but for a torn shower curtain, looking for her missing brother.
Villeneuve at work on Montreal massacre
Montreal: Award-winning writer/director Denis Villeneuve is set for a return to filmmaking after a six-year absence with two projects – an adaptation of a popular play and a retelling of the 1989 massacre at L’École Polytechnique.
Congorama has Cannes hopes
Montreal: Luc Déry has dreams of Cannes. The producer and principal at micro_scope is overseeing the finishing touches on Congorama, his second collaboration with local director Philippe Falardeau, and hopes the $5-million feature will find a place at the famed festival in 2007.
A screwball kind of Love
Vancouver: Love and Other Dilemmas, a new $1-million feature from Clarity Films, under the single-purpose banner Perfect Day Pictures, will go to camera on March 22 after four years of gearing up.
Kennedy Kicks it in B.C.
Vancouver; Jamie Kennedy (Son of the Mask) stars in Kickin’ it Old Skool, from L.A.-based Yari Film Group and service producer Network Entertainment, which began filming on March 20.
Blue movies
With Whistler expected to debut on CTV shortly, Blueprint Entertainment is readying a new slate of series and MOWs for shoots this spring and summer.
CBC wants more Space
Vancouver: CBC is giving This Space for Rent, a would-be dramedy about twentysomethings living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, another shot at finding a place to stay.
This is… Oakville?
George Walker (This Is Wonderland) and partner Dani Romain are developing a new series for The Movie Network and Movie Central, and plan to coproduce the one-hour drama Adult Entertainment with Debbie Nightingale (Chicks with Sticks).
Briefly
* François Girard’s Silk has finished its four-week stay in Japan, and will next shoot in Italy starting April 7.
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