Cannes, France: It’s been a slow reemergence, but the cautious optimism that defined the pronouncements of producers at MIPCOM since 2001 has given way to the real thing at the 2004 edition of the international TV market in the south of France.
While attendance figures were not available by press time, early indications point to a strength not seen in several years.

Could an edgy show with lots of sex and swearing, ample nudity and four really hot women help boost homegrown television? Two of the country’s top producers think so and have come together on a gritty, new HBO-style comedy that has helped repatriate Canada’s newest comedy talents.

Longstanding CanWest Global Communications executives Jack Tomik, president CanWest Media Sales; Loren Mawhinney, VP of Canadian production; and Doug Hoover, SVP programming and promotions, have been shown the door after a major executive shakeup at the Winnipeg-based media giant.

Montreal: The World Film Festival’s death has been greatly exaggerated, says Serge Losique and his team of festival organizers. That was the clear message sent recently when, in a press release, the WFF brass announced that they had secured their corporate sponsorship for next year.

L.A.-based Radar Pictures has teamed with the C.O.R.E. family of companies in Toronto, picking up a minority interest in the visual effects group and announcing plans to coproduce a slate of CG-animated kids features.

Chris Landreth’s animated biography Ryan took the Grand Prix for independent short film ‘for exploring a new visual style of groundbreaking documentary story telling,’ and French director Jacques-Remy Girerd’s La Prophetie des grenouilles (Raining Cats and Frogs) received the Grand Prix for feature film at the 2004 Ottawa International Animation Festival.

The third annual Directors Guild of Canada awards showered more accolades on Les Invasions barbares. The much-lauded feature drama took home prizes for direction of a feature film for Denys Arcand, as well as for team achievement, at the show held Oct. 2 in Toronto.

Only 68 of the thousands of Canadians who vied for slots on CBC’s new primetime reality series Making the Cut appeared in the show’s two-hour debut, and while the series is not expected to attract the giant NHL audiences CBC may have to do without this year, the pubcaster is pleased with initial response to the new show.

After bringing in more than $3.1 million over its opening week, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, distributed by Alliance Atlantis, continues to gain ground as the highest-grossing Canadian feature of the year, almost doubling its initial take in weeks two and three of its release.

Canadian producers claimed four of the 28 nominations for the 32nd International Emmy Awards, which recognize outstanding programs produced outside the U.S., following announcements made Oct. 4 at the MIPCOM market in Cannes, France.

Ivan Reitman’s first visit to Nova Scotia since he immigrated in 1951 and took his first steps on Canadian soil at Halifax’s Pier 21, was certainly the buzz of the 24th Atlantic Film Festival, especially after the veteran Canadian comedy director/producer announced his plans to work on a feature with local heroes the Trailer Park Boys.

Atom Egoyan and Hussein Amarshi raised the curtain on a shared, 10-year project earlier this month with the debut of Camera, a combination bar and movie house that, it is hoped, will put bums on seats and on barstools by screening non-commercial films for thirsty cinephiles. The 52-seat venue, located in an increasingly trendy west Toronto neighborhood, opened this month with a screening of the new art-house pic I, Claudia.

* Hans Fraikin is the new director of Telefilm Canada’s European office in Paris. For the past eight years, Fraikin held positions at Twentieth Century Fox International, at its Jakarta, Indonesia and Paris offices.

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Sandra Richmond is a partner in the Toronto law firm of McMillan Binch LLP and a member of the firm’s KNOWlaw Group. This article was written with the assistance of Melissa McBean.