Jean-Marc Vallée will be among the Banff World Media Festival’s Rockies Gala Award honourees this year. Vallée, whose numerous film and television directing credits include The Dallas Buyers Club, Wild, and Big Little Lies, will be posthumously awarded the Canadian Award of Distinction, given to a Canadian whose body of work exemplifies outstanding achievement in the entertainment industry. Winnipeg-based independent production company Eagle Vision – led by Lisa Meeches and Kyle Irving, and behind series like Burden of Truth, Ice Road Truckers, and Oscar-winning feature film, Capote – will be presented with the Innovative Producer Award, recognizing the entrepreneurial excellence and achievement of an independent producer in TV/digital media. The awards will be handed out at an in-person ceremony at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel on Tuesday, June 14, hosted by Canadian R&B/Soul icon Jully Black. Read more here.
CBC has announced its 2022-23 programming slate for CBC TV and CBC Gem, featuring over 40 new and returning original series and specials. The lineup includes second seasons of comedies Sort Of, Strays, Run The Burbs, and Son of a Critch, as well as returning shows Workin’ Moms and the 30th anniversary season of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. New comedy shows include Comedy Night with Rick Mercer and CBC Gem original teen drama, Fakes. Heartland, Murdoch Mysteries, Moonshine, and Diggstown also return this fall, in addition to new family drama, Essex County – a limited series based on Jeff Lemire’s graphic novels – and an English-language adaptation of Radio-Canada series PLAN B. Pretty Hard Cases will also return for a third season. Other new additions include CBC Gem original LIDO TV, hosted by Colombian-Canadian musician and artist Lido Pimienta; Marie Clements’ five-part Indigenous drama Bones of Crows (in partnership with APTN); and factual series Bollywed revolving around an iconic bridal shop in Toronto’s Little India. Absent from the renewals list are medical drama Coroner as star Serinda Swan departs the series, and sketch comedy series TallBoyz.
CTV, Fremantle, and Reel World Management have announced the cast attached to new CTV Original drama series, Sullivan’s Crossing, an adaption of the bestselling novels by Robyn Carr (Virgin River). In the lead role of Maggie Sullivan, Canadian actress Morgan Kohan (Transplant) heads the cast alongside Chad Michael Murray (One Tree Hill) as Cal Jones, and Scott Patterson (Gilmore Girls) as Maggie’s estranged father. With production on the 10-episode, one-hour series set to begin this summer in Nova Scotia, also joining the principal cast are Tom Jackson (Cardinal), Andrea Menard (The Velvet Devil), Lynda Boyd (Virgin River), Allan Hawco (Jack Ryan), and Amalia Williamson (Northern Rescue). Sullivan’s Crossing is being produced as an interprovincial co-production with Nova Scotia-based producer Mike Volpe and Ontario-based producer Mark Gingras.
CHEK has unveiled a new logo and refreshed branding campaign. It’s the first brand update for the Victoria station since CHEK became independent and employee-owned 12 years ago. Created in-house by CHEK Art Director Dave Lackmanec, Indigenous artist (Kwagiulth) Lou-Ann Neel was also commissioned to provide a version of the new logo for use on special occasions and when presenting Indigenous programming like upcoming documentary, A Cedar is Life. CHEK is in its 66th year of broadcasting. It was the first private television station in B.C. when it launched Dec. 1, 1956, becoming independent and employee-owned in 2009 when the employees, their union and community-minded investors came together to save the station from fading to black.
Lynda Steele and Jody Vance are teaming up for weekly one-hour talk show, The Steele and Vance Show, launching Sept. 8 on CHEK TV. Steele, who was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award from RTDNA Canada in 2019, has had a 35-year career that includes 17 years anchoring the supper hour newscast on Global Edmonton. She was most recently the host of highly-rated afternoon drive show, The Lynda Steele Show, on 980 CKNW Vancouver. Vance has been in radio and TV since the late ’80s, holding roles from sports anchor and host on CBC to her current gig as a freelance Canadian correspondent for Al Jazeera English TV and TheOrca.ca. The Steele and Vance Show will air Thursday nights at 8 p.m. and available to stream on CHEK+ and for download as a podcast. CHEK says the show will anchor its new primetime lineup of local talk shows, including BC Legends with former BC Finance Minister and broadcaster Carole Taylor, and This is Vancolour with Mo Amir. Read more here.
CTV Atlantic is offering expanded coverage of the 38th IWK Telethon For Children, starting with two-hour musical special, A Telethon Tribute To Your IWK, Saturday, June 4 at 7 p.m. The tribute, featuring Maritime performers like David Myles, Matt Anderson, Carleton Stone, and Jenn Grant and The Gilberts, will honour the IWK Health staff who continue to provide world-class care amid ongoing challenges through the pandemic. The special will lead into the telethon on Sunday, June 5, the IWK’s largest annual fundraiser. Familiar faces joining the broadcast will include CTV News at Six Chief Anchor Todd Battis, CTV News At Five hosts Jayson Baxter and Maria Panopalis, entertainment reporter Katie Kelly, and CTV Morning Live’s Ana Almeida, in addition to longtime telethon host and CTV Atlantic special correspondent Steve Murphy.
Goalcast continues to broaden its availability through a FAST licensing agreement with DistroTV. Montreal-based Goalcast features motivational content, including documentaries, speeches and short films. Viewers can stream DistroTV for free on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Google TV, LG TV, Samsung TV, Sony TV, iOS, Android, or the web.
Nova Scotia is increasing the project cap under the Nova Scotia Film and Television Production Incentive Fund, making it easier for larger productions to film in the province Effective immediately, the maximum amount of funding a project can receive is $10 million, up from $4 million. Nova Scotia is also investing an extra $16.4 million in the film fund above the annual budget of $25 million, bringing the fund’s total to $41.4 million for 2022-23. To date, 75 film fund applications have been approved for 2022-23. Applicants can apply for a grant of between 25 to 32% of their eligible Nova Scotia costs.
The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) has announced the 2022 summer cohort of the Bell Media Prime Time TV Program, a professional, immersive story room experience and original series development intensive for Canadian TV writers. The cohort will be joined by award-winning writer-producer and CFC alumnus Patrick Tarr as Executive Producer in Residence to lead the story room. Together, they’ll work as a team to develop Tarr’s original series, Think Tank, a serialized one-hour procedural/mystery. The selected writers are: Toronto-based screenwriter Rebecca Grenier; CFC Directors’ Lab alum Svjetlana Jaklenec; South Asian screenwriter Abdul Malik (Peace by Chocolate, Transplant); Toronto-based writer Emma Malm; screenwriter Clint Murphy; and Hellman Wilhelm, a Taiwanese Canadian screenwriter and co-founder of Canted Pictures. Applications are now open for the first-ever ½ hour comedy series cohort of the Bell Media Prime Time TV Program, which will run from October until the end of March. Learn more and apply here.
