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Jump Cuts

Cinar to seek new TSX listing

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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.

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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.

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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.’

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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CAFDE seeks better domestic films

Richard Paradis, president of the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters, says distributors are onside with Telefilm Canada’s performance policy orientation for feature films.

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CMPDA stands for market access

Like the Motion Picture Association of America in the U.S., full and open access to markets lies at the heart of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association credo.

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APFTQ protects prods’ gains

One of the main areas of focus for l’Association des producteurs de films et de television du Quebec is the general protection of independent production on a public policy and governmental level. When there is a change of political regimes, the APFTQ has to ensure past gains won by producers aren’t undone.

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CFTPA spearheads production financing agenda

The Canadian Film and Television Production Association has nearly 400 company members across the country, including independent producers, broadcaster-affiliate prodcos and producers of interactive media.