Based on a book by Martha Ostenso, After the Harvest is the tragic story of the Gares, a Prairie family in the 1920s. Caleb Gare (Sam Shepard), the family patriarch, is the rich farmer who despite his wealth keeps his family in near-poverty.

During one of the episodes of The Associates, director of photography Philip Earnshaw was lighting an actor with a small scar on her face. Most of the time he worked to minimize the scar, but in this instance it was appropriate to emphasize it. ‘You could see a vein and it worked for that scene. There’s a convention in TV and movies to make women look as fantastic as possible; the challenge is to make them look good but in keeping with the mood the director is trying to create,’ he says.

The Gemini nomination for director of photography David Moxness for Gene Rodenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict is not just a personal recognition but also a vindication of the format the show uses. It was the first episodic television production to shoot with Sony’s 24p high-definition HDW-F900 camcorders. Moxness joined Final Conflict in its third season. The series, an Alliance Atlantis production in association with Tribune Entertainment Company, is about an alien race who come to Earth and use their technology to help the planet while battling human opposition. To get prepared for the switch from film, Moxness and Thoman Durnan, the series’ other DOP, shot the series’ sets. Everyone was happy with the results.

Nominated for a Gemini in the best talk/general information series category, the irreverent The New Music shares the nominee podium with more grown-up fare such as Pamela Wallin’s Talk TV and Vicki Gabereau among others. The show that gave J.D. Roberts and Jeanne Beker their career jolts, and established Daniel Richler as a pop culture guru, has been running for 23 years. It has won two Geminis. The current host is former Edge 102 DJ George Stroumboulopoulos, with contributions from videographer Larisa Gulka.

Now in its fourth season, and the previous winner of four Geminis, Da Vinci’s Inquest stars Nicholas Campbell as Vancouver coroner Dominic Da Vinci attempting to solve the mysteries behind the deaths committed in downtown Eastside.

Starring Natasha Richardson, Colm Feore, Henry Czerny, Amanda Plummer, Martin Landau and Anne Bancroft, the four-hour miniseries Haven was broadcast on CTV and CBS and is based on the true story of Ruth Gruber.

Torontonians have been accused of looking upon their city as the centre of the universe, and perhaps never more so than in the 10 days of the year known as the Toronto International Film Festival. But what has become one of the preeminent launching pads for world cinema as well as a publicity hub for the most sought-after movie stars ground to a halt on day six due to the terrorism perpetrated against Canada’s neighbor to the south.
The stunning news of the suicide hijackings in the U.S. took much of the shine off this year’s edition of TIFF (Sept. 6-15), which in recent years has become a red-carpet, black-limousine, star-studded affair, where would-be schmoozers try to talk their way past jaded bouncers into exclusive parties. But in the wake of the tragedy, the usually celebratory tone turned somber. At 12:30 p.m. on Sept. 11, TIFF issued a statement on its website that all festival events other than screenings had been cancelled for the day. By 2 p.m., the day’s screenings were off as well.

Montreal: Distributors want to know exactly what is on the table in the current round of negotiations between the American majors and the Quebec government.
Quebec’s minister of culture and communications and the studios, represented by the Motion Picture Association of America, are negotiating the renewal of the Valenti-Bacon accord, which defines the rights and obligations of the seven major U.S. distributors in the Quebec market.
Richard Paradis, president of the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters, says the distribs want to be sure ‘the government understands the preoccupations and particular requirements of the Quebec market.’

After a brief stint with Vancouver’s InternetStudios, film-financing expert Robert Beattie is returning to his roots in his new role as the first Canadian rep for American gap finance pioneer The Lewis Horowitz Organization.
With its newfound presence in Canada, LHO, a division of L.A.’s Southern Pacific Bank, will be able to expand its reach to Canadian producers looking beyond the Canadian funding system to make their movies and TV programs. The Canadian film and TV industry will also have a much easier time borrowing money against unsold rights, as the 21-year-old LHO is a leader in gap financing – a model Canadian banks have traditionally shied away from.

Montreal: Some claim it’s taken 40 years, but finally CTV has a real home in Montreal.
The network has acquired 100% interest in CF Television, changing CFCF-TV’s status from long-term affiliate to a wholly owned and operated station.
CTV’s takeover of CF Television was approved by the CRTC earlier this month, and the deal was signed and closed on Thursday, Sept. 13, says Tom Curzon, CTV’s group VP, corporate communications.

Montreal: TVA Group has confirmed it is in talks to sell its unprofitable 70%-owned TVA International unit.

Montreal: Iranian director Majid Majidi’s Baran, a story of illegal Afghan workers exiled in Iran, and Hungarian director Arpad Sopsits’s Torzok (Abandoned), a grim and finely crafted dramatization of the cruel fate of abandoned children in Hungary circa 1960, shared this year’s Grand Prix des Ameriques for top film in competition at the 25th edition of the Montreal World Film Festival.

Due to the catastrophic events that have taken place in the U.S., the 26th Atlantic Film Festival has been forced to change its film lineup and some events, but organizers assure that, despite some faulty media reports, the festival is taking place as planned Sept. 14-22 in Halifax.
‘We are going ahead,’ confirms AFF communications manager Ivy Ho. ‘It’s going to be difficult because we have to juggle things around, but for everyone’s sake it’s going through.’

It’s Saturday morning and I’m sitting in the Rogers Industry Centre during the Toronto festival sifting through a pound of press releases and invitations left in my press box, when a man sitting next to me asks if I’ve seen anything worthwhile. Before I have a chance to tell him that I had seen Last Wedding and thought it was quite impressive in performance and dialogue and that I couldn’t get a couple of its, let’s say, raw sex scenes out of my mind,’ he starts mumbling something about some press screening he’d just come from. ‘Oh you’re press?’ I ask. ‘No, no, I’m a distributor. American. I’ve been coming to this festival for years,’ he responds. ‘So, did you see Last Wedding?’ I ask.

Jewison, Lantos team up