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Da Vinci’s leads Leo pack with 21 nominations
Vancouver: Television series Da Vinci’s Inquest and feature Flower & Garnet dominated the 2003 Leo Awards nominations announced April 16.
B.C. prods score big in LFP lotto
Vancouver: While the fate of Omni Film’s teen soap Edgemont is in limbo following the recent Licence Fee Program announcements from the Canadian Television Fund, the production company’s new half-hour anthology series Keys Cut Here successfully ran the gauntlet. In fact, B.C. overall fared not too badly relative to the rest of the country reeling from funding, and now production, cuts.
Ontario prodcos stung by MOW losses
Of the big three networks, CTV is hardest hit by the CTF LFP returns – failing to secure funding for The Eleventh Hour and seven of its planned MOWs for ’03/04. All but two of those come from Ontario production houses.
Quebec broadcasters call for ‘special allocation’
Montreal: Quebec’s three leading private broadcasters, Reseau TVA, Television Quatre Saisons and Astral Media, are calling on the Canadian Television Fund’s board of directors to immediately establish a special allocation of at least $8 million for French-language, private broadcasters’ programs rejected in this spring’s LFP round.
Jump Cuts
Cinar to seek new TSX listing
CTF bombshell the beginning of change
In what is being framed as a ‘catastrophic’ blow to Canadian TV drama, producers have been left picking their jaws up off the sidewalk after a full 64% of CTF applications were turned down earlier this month. This, following a year of hand-wringing over the state of Canadian drama in the wake of declines in new programming and a stall in production growth in 2002.
Diversity tops at maiden INDICO event
Peter Flemington, a founder of VisionTV and its head of programming for a dozen years, teaches and produces and serves on the international advisory board of INDICO.
Omission
Movie Central is among the financial backers of Decoys, the sci-fi comedy featured in the April 14 story ‘CHUM shoots Decoys for BO success.’
More docs headed for the big screen?
When a US$3-million feature documentary rakes in a reported US$40 million in worldwide box office, it’s bound to cause a stir in the non-fiction world. Granted, Michael Moore’s Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine, brought to life with Canadian prodco Alliance Atlantis, is no average doc. Not many such films are directed by and feature a celebrity with a book (Stupid White Men) on the bestseller shelves. But its success has some debating whether it will help more feature docs achieve a high profile in Canada.
Hot Docs expands for 10th anniversary
Docs are indeed hot. Maybe it’s due to the fact that with such extreme and dramatic real-life, realtime images all over the news these days, the dramas and comedies are starting to look artificial and banal. It could be that in these tighter economic times, shot-on-video docs present a necessary alternative to dramatic production. Whatever the case, there is clearly a larger-than-ever audience for a less constructed rendition of reality, its most low-rent manifestation being the ‘reality TV’ overwhelming the airwaves.
The dos and don’ts of doc production
Gerry Flahive is a documentary producer at the National Film Board in Toronto. His upcoming productions include Almost Real: Connecting in a Wired World and the series The Next Big Thing.
Naked in front of the lens
Donna Gall is a freelance director, researcher and writer currently in preproduction on her first independent documentary, Northway Girls, about the oldest girls’ camp in Canada.
NFB expands international role
Although Tom Perlmutter, director of the English Program at the National Film Board, promises an announcement at Hot Docs that will be ‘very interesting and significant,’ the NFB has already made three moves this month that saw its international role grow significantly.
CDTV & CCTA prepare for HDTV
While the Canadian Digital Television Association says its broadcaster members are about to jump on board the North American high-definition rollout, the Canadian Cable Television Association reports that its members are looking south to fulfill growing demand for HD programming.
Academy tweaks its award shows
Maria Topolovich, president of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, believes her organization’s traditional rallying point, its awards shows, are doing a fine job, thank you, but that’s not to say they can’t be made better.
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