Michel Coulombe is a TV and Web programmer with the SilenceOnCourt.tv platform and French-language arts channel ARTV.

With the First Cut Awards marking our annual celebration of the work of first- and second-year directors, OTS turned to Canadian agencies to ask: ‘What does a young director bring to a commercial production?’

Montreal: Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako’s Waiting for Happiness, a simple, impressionistic story of exile and village life on the African coast, is the winner of the Dvcolor $10,000 Louve d’Or prize for best feature film at the 31st Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and New Media.

Union heads across the entertainment industry are optimistic that their first unified lobby effort will bring quick changes to policies at the CRTC and reverse the apparent slump in production of Canadian TV drama. The Canadian Coalition of Audiovisual Unions, which earlier this year submitted a policy paper to the federal regulator and Minister of Canadian Heritage Sheila Copps, has had some early success.

The International Cinematographers Guild, IATSE Local 667, has taken steps to allow cash-strapped productions to use its camera technicians and make films with the visual proficiency needed to hope to ever find an audience.

Representatives of ACTRA and the Union of BC Performers agree with the Screen Actors Guild that the implementation of SAG’s Global Rule One ‘has not presented any significant administrative difficulties,’ according to a joint statement released by the three organizations.

Alarmed at recent rulings by the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, actors and other performers are fighting to protect their status as independent contractors. Senator Tommy Banks, in the artists’ corner, met Oct. 9 in Ottawa with representatives from across the entertainment industry to discuss the problem of Employment Insurance, performing artists and Canadian tax law.

GFT Entertainment is set to wrap production on The Limit, a $5.8-million thriller shooting in Hamilton, ON and starring screen legend Lauren Bacall along with Claire Forlani, Henry Czerny and Pete Postlethwaite.
The Canada/U.K. copro, handled on this side of the pond by GFT, casts the 78-year-old Bacall as a feisty senior who crosses paths with an undercover cop (Forlani) and a ruthless gangster (Postlethwaite).
Toronto-based AD-turned-helmer Lewin Webb (The Long Kiss Goodnight, Johnny Mnemonic) makes his feature directorial debut and also produces along with GFT’s Gary Howsam and Jamie Brown of Studio Eight Productions in London. GFT regular Curtis Peterson (Detention) is DOP and Nick Rotundo (The Fourth Angel) will edit after the Oct. 30 wrap.

Vancouver: The WB Network has commissioned a pilot and six one-hours of The Black Sash, a mid-season replacement series by Tollin/Robbins Productions.
In the drama, a former cop falsely accused and incarcerated in Hong Kong returns to the U.S. and becomes a martial arts instructor by day and a bounty hunter by night. It stars Russell Wong (Romeo Must Die), Ray J (Moesha), and Canadians Corey Sevier (A Wilderness Station) and Sarah Carter (Trapped).
Production runs Nov. 4 to Jan. 24.

Montreal: Principal photography on Paul Thinel’s (Rumue-menage, Second souffle) feature film debut Les Immortels wrapped Oct. 7 after close to five weeks of shooting, mainly on location in the industrial town of Sorel, QC.
It’s a ‘feel-good story’ with dramatic and comedy elements about a youthful pop band, seemingly headed for success and the big city, and a second musical outfit mostly made up of older local factory workers, says ACPAV’s Marc Daigle, who is producing with Rene Gueissaz.
Leads include Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge (Le Matou, Rumeurs) as the leader of the pop band Les Immortels, Senator Jean Lapointe, Isabelle Lemme, Pascal Parent, Andre Ouellete, drum king Guy Nadon and Paolo Noel.

Montreal: Inspired by existing mechanisms used to support European film and TV production, professional industry associations in Quebec are calling on the provincial government to secure new and stable sources of financing, including a direct tax on movie tickets and wholesale video revenues.
There was wide support for the proposals at public hearings held last month in Montreal and Quebec City to review Quebec’s cinema law and the state of the film and TV industry, including support from the APFTQ, CAFDE, STCVQ, ARRQ, UDA, the DGC Quebec Council and SARTEC.
Citing the system adopted in France, attendees told the committee, headed by Doris Girard, deputy minister of culture and communications, that redirecting Quebec sales tax revenues derived from theatre admissions would add $13.3 million a year to SODEC production resources, while the addition of sales tax on wholesale video distribution would generate $19.2 million in support of production.

Shows from Decode Entertainment, Cinegroupe Images and Nelvana placed high on this year’s most-screened product list at MIPCOM Junior, the two-day specialty market held in conjunction with MIPCOM, Oct. 7-11 in Cannes, France.
There were 695 kids titles – 319 new ones – available for screening at the 2002 mini-market compared to 785 in 2001. The top title was B-Bot vs. the Alien Posse, a coproduction between Decode and Sunwoo Entertainment of the U.S., followed by Decode’s Franny’s Feet and Fire Quest from Millimages in the U.K.

Mention a good movie about reporters to the makers of The Eleventh Hour and the room just about explodes with excited chatter. All the President’s Men, His Girl Friday, Broadcast News, The Insider. They’ve seen and studied them all.
‘Fantastic phone calls!’ says director David Wellington of the 1976 Watergate saga. ‘Some of the best phone calls ever in movies. I loved the whole procedural aspect of President’s Men, all the simple things. And the best phone filters in the history of movies. Perfect sound on them.’
‘I love His Girl Friday,’ co-creators Semi Chellas and Ilana Frank nearly squeal in perfect synch when someone brings up the 1940 Cary Grant picture. ‘That’s one of my favorite movies ever,’ Chellas adds.
All that enthusiasm and research is, it seems, being put to good use on the set of the new Alliance Atlantis dramatic series, which debuts on CTV Nov. 26 at 10 p.m. The Eleventh Hour, Canada’s only new English-language drama this season, follows the exploits of investigative reporters at a venerable TV news magazine of the same name, not unlike 60 Minutes or W5. John Neville (The X-Files), Sonja Smits (Traders), Tanya Reid (Da Vinci’s Inquest) and Peter MacNeill (Psi Factor) are front and centre as the senior newshounds, part of a well-rounded cast that includes Waneta Storm, Shawn Doyle and Jeff Seymour.

Vancouver: A review of government fees and advertising standards will contribute to a healthier investor climate that is key to the long-term viability of the television and radio sector, says the recently appointed president and CEO of the 600-member Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
‘We have to make [the investor climate] more attractive than it currently is,’ says Glen O’Farrell, speaking on the eve of Broadcasting 2002, the association’s 76th Annual Convention, being held this year in Vancouver Oct. 20-22. ‘The CAB will be successful if it can develop win-win proposals for government that maintain investor confidence.’
For example, the CAB wants the CRTC to do away with or divert about $80 million a year in extra fees paid by radio, television and specialty providers. The so-called Part 2 fees – considered an illegal form of taxation by the association – go to the government’s consolidated revenues and not to upkeep of the Canadian broadcasting system like Part 1 fees, says O’Farrell.

After less than two years on the job, Kevin Shea has stepped down as group vice-president, convergence at Bell Globemedia and will not be replaced – prompting speculation that the media giant is abandoning efforts to combine its print, TV and Internet sales strategies.