Late ’70s/early ’80s: McDonald graduates from Montreal’s McGill University with a master’s degree in library sciences

A good friend and a good foe

On intellectual property rights:

Canada’s private funds are a major resource for producers as they try to navigate the complex rules of the national funding game. The funds are flexible and substantial enough to be able to trigger production on a range of priority programs – other than big-budget drama series – independent of support from the Canadian Television Fund. There are 20 or more funds, in large measure ‘children of the CRTC,’ that collectively contribute between $40 million and $50 million annually to the industry.

The Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund has announced a revised mandate that will further facilitate the long-term partnering between the broadcast and Web sectors and increase the national and global profile of industry stakeholders.

Can a handful of industry heavies undo the damage brought on by the rising loonie, funding cuts and a shifting market? That is the question that will, eventually, be answered by the Ontario Film and Television Consortium, a collection of high-ranked industry pros who last month unveiled their plans to revive foreign and domestic production in Ontario.
The OFTC brings together more than 30 companies, unions and guilds representing studios, post houses and some 25,000 actors, directors and technicians, all of whom have been bruised by the three-year province-wide drop in production and, more recently, the SARS crisis.

Montreal: If it’s business as usual this summer for movie producer Don Carmody, then he’s in some Canadian city overseeing the production of a major motion picture. A big part of his job is reassuring other production executives, who are generally quite far away, that all is well, while keeping huge daily expenditures on track, and, occasionally, reading the riot act to cast and crew.

There’s good news and bad news for Salter Street Films’ This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The good news is that 22 Minutes will go ahead for the 2003/04 season thanks to a ‘creative financing’ effort by broadcaster CBC and Alliance Atlantis Communications (Salter’s parent outfit). The bad news is costar Colin Mochrie won’t be returning with it.

Montreal: Both Telefilm Canada and SODEC have announced their second-round (2003/04) feature film funding decisions.

CTV joined the same club as Julia Roberts, K-Mart and Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft this month when it signed a deal to be represented by Creative Artists Agency. The top-ranked talent handler will rep the network on the development and production of scripted and reality programming in the U.S. and will also help broker coproductions with U.S. broadcasters.

Montreal: The Max Films comedy La Grande Seduction took in $902,697 over its opening July 11-13 weekend, establishing a new record for a Quebec summer release, says distrib Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm.

Al-Jazeera in Canada?

Telefilm Canada has restored its portion of funding to the Ottawa International Animation Festival for next year’s event after stating it would pull its financial support to the fest indefinitely.

The Canadian Cable Television Association and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters have reason to feel confident about their lawsuit against several alleged illegal satellite dealers in Ontario and Quebec. The organizations, along with Quebec’s Videotron, have been aided in their cause by a recent pre-trial ruling by Judge Judith Snider ordering the seizure of satellite reception equipment and access cards from certain defendants.

Cineplex Odeon Canada has named company veteran Sam DiMichele its new president. DiMichele had served as general manager since 2000. At the same time, the exhibitor also announced that senior VP film Tony Cianciotta has left the company following a three-and-a-half-year tenure. Cianciotta also worked earlier with 20th Century Fox, Alliance Releasing and Red Sky Entertainment, which he cofounded in 1997. In a prepared statement, Cineplex said he left ‘to pursue new challenges.’