Vancouver: At press time, Stargate SG-1 was in production with its seventh episode of its ninth season – yet another season of 22 one-hours ordered by Sci Fi Channel that keeps the successful franchise alive. For those of you counting, that’s at least two more seasons than most observers and many insiders gave the series.

Who’s your Santa?

Toronto: Two years after exiting their Starhunter series, producers Daniel D’Or and Philip Jackson have put together a deal for a new show by invoking a little-used provision of the Canada/U.K. copro treaty, and are in prep to shoot season one of Ice Planet as a ‘twinned coproduction’ between their Toronto-based SpaceWorks Entertainment and Highgate Films in London.
The series, about the marooned crew of a spaceship, will shoot on similar sets in Canada and the U.K., starting this summer in Toronto on a budget of $32.5 million.

Montreal: Producers Josée Mauffette and Jean Bureau have just wrapped on Montreal-based prodco Incendo Productions’ fifteenth MOW. The four-year-old company (formerly JB Media) – owned by Bureau and Stephen Greenberg – is gearing up for a busy production year with four additional MOWs in the works, as well as a one-hour action series, the company’s first international coproduction.

Canada Russia 1972 wraps in New Brunswick

From Dying to dementia

The overall health of Canadian film and TV production last year was perhaps even worse than expected, with the feature film and drama series formats taking particularly hard hits. The silver lining is that TV movies, docs and live-action children’s programming showed signs of growth, and as media giants fade from the production scene, several mid-sized prodcos seem to be taking advantage.

The following chart indicates where independent production companies spent their money in 2002.

Telefilm Canada, the Canadian Television Fund and the Department of Canadian Heritage are closing in on an agreement that stands to rewrite the federal system for television funding, possibly by handing the entire TV file to either Telefilm or the CTF.
A decision is expected from Heritage Minister Liza Frulla sometime before the Banff World Television Festival in June, and although no one is willing to predict the outcome, there are four options under consideration.

Las Vegas: For most of the 80-plus years that the National Association of Broadcasters has held a convention, the event has been a get-together for primarily one group – television and radio broadcasters. But new technologies have irrevocably changed the face of both broadcasting and NAB and, at NAB2005, computer manufacturers and service providers were equally prominent, leading sessions and telling traditional broadcasters what their future will be.

The not-so-sunny French Riviera inspired a sunny disposition among producers and buyers at this year’s MIPTV, a spring market marked by an upswing in sales of drama, animation and tween-aimed comedies.
‘It was upbeat and very, very busy,’ says Lise Corriveau, Telefilm Canada’s director of international festivals and markets, noting that the event shows ample evidence that the international television industry continues to mend. ‘We were swamped. It’s safe to say the market has picked up on a permanent basis.’

Film festivals in Montreal and Halifax are expected to resolve their differences ‘very soon,’ following meetings between organizers of the Atlantic Film Festival, the new Montreal International Film Festival and funding boss Wayne Clarkson.

The CRTC’s plan to boost homegrown TV drama has met with mixed reviews, and yet all of Canada’s major broadcasters – with the exception of CBC – have now signed up for the deal, or are in the process of doing so.

A new tree appeared on the landscape this month, with word that Lions Gate has sold off its Canadian distribution operations to newly formed Maple Pictures, a Toronto-based outfit that, overnight, has taken its place as the second-largest indie film and video handler in the country, behind Alliance Atlantis.

Two of Canada’s most esteemed directors will battle it out for the coveted Palme d’Or at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival as Atom Egoyan’s Where the Truth Lies runs against David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence. Both were chosen to screen in competition at next month’s fest, along with 18 other features selected from among more than 1,500 submissions.