The central message of the 2001/02 Canadian Television Fund annual report should be news to no one: documentaries are waxing, dramas are waning.

Canada soft on signal theft

Asked what was the best Canadian feature film they saw at the Toronto International Film Festival, 27% of poll respondents voted for Spider, followed by 16% for Bollywood/Hollywood, 9% for Flower & Garnet, 6% for Long Life, Prosperity and Happiness, and 3% each for Ararat and The Wild Dogs. The remaining 36% favored films that did not appear among the selections.

The Thom Fitzgerald movie The Wild Dogs received production funding from The Harold Greenberg Fund, but that was not mentioned in the film’s Sept. 2 film diary.

THE new fall television season brings a healthy influx of Hollywood crime series that are being praised for pushing the boundaries of TV drama. According to advance reviews, shows such as The Shield, Boomtown, CSI: Miami and Robbery Homicide Division are breaking ground with more complex characters and unconventional story structures. So how does a venerable Canadian program such as Da Vinci’s Inquest, leading all dramas with 10 Gemini nominations including best dramatic series, keep up with this raised bar?

As if Ken Finkleman wasn’t busy enough, the writer/director/producer/actor will again have to find time in his jam-packed daytimer to sit in on this year’s Gemini Awards – where his most recent project, the six-part limited series Foreign Objects, is in the running for best dramatic series.

The real prize in Canadian drama production is not a Gemini Award or even a nomination – it’s keeping your series on the air. This has long been the case, but with the collapse of the international marketplace, increasingly fragmented audiences and the rise of reality TV, the odds against have become even greater. And that’s what makes Keatley MacLeod/Alliance Atlantis’ Cold Squad, nominated for nine Geminis for season five on CTV, a true champ.

* Montreal-based EVP Benoit Hogue has been named president of Groupe Moliflex-White, a Comweb group company specializing in equipment and studio rental services.

Galafilm of Montreal and Toronto’s Back Alley Films wrapped principal photography late last fall after 32 days on the initial eight half-hours of the highly charged erotic anthology Bliss, a Gemini hopeful in the best dramatic series category.

‘He is damaged like all of us. I think he has taken his licks in life and has learned to survive rather than just live. Patrick is looking for something to heal him, whether it be love, religion or alcohol,’ says Martin Cummins of the police investigator character that has earned him a Gemini nomination for best actor in a continuing leading role on Dice, itself nominated for best dramatic series.

Montreal: More than 200 film, video and digital works from 50 countries including 74 feature-length films, mostly top European fare, in addition to the regular mix of eclectic art house and indie productions, 20 digital works and a promising tribute/retrospective series make up this year’s 31st edition of the Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and New Media, Oct. 10-20.

Montreal: Radio-Canada is marking its remarkable 50 years of television by introducing 20 new shows for the 2002/03 season, highlighted by seven new drama series and two returning miniseries, says Suzanne Laverdiere, interim director-general of programming.

For those who grew up in Hamilton, ON not to know the story of Evelyn Dick and the grisly 1946 murder of her husband John is like not knowing that steel is made from iron ore, or that Lime Ridge Mall should be avoided on Saturdays.

A year after the pilot first aired, Toronto-based S&S Productions will bring another six 30-minute episodes of An American in Canada to CBC in January. Working under producer Colin Brunton (Over the Falls) and exec producer/writer Howard Busgang (Boy Meets World), director Shawn Alex Thompson (Puppets Who Kill) recently wrapped season one of the comedy series, which follows the adventures of Jake Crewe (Rick Roberts), a displaced and desperate newscaster from Arizona who takes a job at a Calgary radio station.
S&S’s David Smith says the company had ‘a hell of a time’ putting An American in Canada together, in part because Telefilm Canada backed the pilot, but not the series. ‘That’s very bizarre. I mean, how are they going to recoup?’ he says. ‘I guess there just wasn’t enough money to go around.’ The budget was cut to $350,000 per ep from $450,000, and filming went ahead with LFP cash and some equipment on loan from CBC. The series also saved a few pennies by switching to HD, making this the national broadcaster’s first high-definition project.

CBC/Radio-Canada and MIPCOM host Reed Midem are cosponsors of this year’s opening-night festivities, highlighted by a gala performance by the internationally renowned Cirque du Soleil.