CINEMA CA N A D A • WENDY DUDLEY

Communications ofToronto, and the Blackburn will Group. The CRTC concluded that the transler 01 control did not result in any undue concentration spend $10 million of ownership and resulting quick flip of the assets did not represent" trafficking in licences ", on drama which is disallowed by the Commission. However, itdid order the company to investthe - Donald C. Brinton, president $21. 2 million it made as a result of the resa le of and CEO of the CanWest Television Group, Selkirk's assets in a capital fund for the - Film editor Rick Benwick, owner of Cine Edit Ltd., is in England working on announced the establishment 01 an annual improvement of the broadcasting system in the Philip Ridley's Refiectillg Skill, a $1. 5-million Fugitive Features Ltd. production that recently drama fund of $2 million for each of the next five country. wrapped a six-week shoot north of Calgary. years. This total allocation 01 $10 million will be MH will now ha ve to decide whether it wants Benwick worked on Refiecting Skin as an assistant film editor but because 01 his editing skills expended primarily on equity investments in to keep the financially troubled CHCH-TV or try (Primo Baby, Wild POllY, The Ranch, Dead Bang), he was asked to travel to England to help high-quality productions that provide a tose ll it to a third party again. It did keep the key furt her edit and mix sound on the film abou t a young boy growing up in Iowa during the 1950s. significant benefit to western . Selkirk properties in Canada tha t it wanted: Excited about the overseas opportunity, Benwick said, "It's a great experience to work with This new fund will be facilitated through 's FM radio station , CFNY-FM, and English editors. They cut their lihns more loosely than the Canadians and Americans. We're CanWest Productions, a division of CanWest 's Ltd. Selkirk's single most a lo t more aggressive. " Broadcasting Ltd. Stan Thomas has recently valuable asset, a Florida cable system, is outside As a freelance editor, Benwick, 41 , has in 12 years edited more than 260 television been named General Manager of this division in the CRTC's jurisdiction, and MH plans to keep it commercials and 70 documentaries on Calgary industries. His wife, Pamela, has accompanied addition to his continuing responsibilities as as well. him to London. She's ready for a breather, having just finished wardrobe work on Haruki V. P. of Programming fo r CanWest. Can West Kadokawa's $SO-million Heaven alld Earth. Productions operates out of CKVU in Vancouver. BLONDHEIM'S BLUES The soundtrack of Anne Wheeler's Bye btJe blues was recentlyre leased in Canada on the WEA The Global label. 's George Blondheim acted as the film's music producer and is president of that city's Beta Sound studio, where some of the cuts were re-recorded. The soundtrack Network up includes such warhorses as Who's Sorry Now, Sweet Georgia Brown and I'll Be Home For CFPL· TV denied Christ mas. Wheeler and Lou Natale won a Genie fo r the title song. for auction permission to AND SHE'S OFF ... -Ownership of the Global television Eda Lishman's Primo Baby premiered at the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax in late September. buyCHCH·TV network will be decided by auction after a The$3- million feature film, abou t a sight-impaired racehorse and street-wise teenager, lihned judge'S ruling that the company in and around Calgary last fall by The Producers Limited, Lishman's local production LONDON- While ruling in favour of the biggest should go to the highest bidder. Global' s three company. The all-Canadian cast includes Janet-Laine Green (Beachcombers , Seeillg Thillgs), takeover in Canadian broadcasting history by partners have been warring over ownership for Duncan Regehr !The Bluealld The Gray), Tim Battle (Danger Bay, 21 Jum!, Street )and Calgarian allowing Maclean Hunter ofToronto to buy years, and the judge's decision should clear the Esther Purves-Smith in her !irst role. The filmi s scheduled for a spring Calgary premiere and Selkirk Communications, also of Toronto, the way for a resolution, possibl y by the end of the theatrical release. CRTC denied Maclean's application to re-sell the year. ailing CHCH-TV of Hamilton to CFPL-TV of lzzy Asper of owns 100 per cent of GREAT PLANS AT GREAT NORTH London for $68. 5 million . The Commission Can West Communications, which in turn owns Edmonton's Grea t North Productions Inc. plans to shoot a leature film next summer based on concluded in its decision, handed down Sept. 60 per cent of the Toronto-based Global Alberta au thor Robert Kroetsch's book Badlmlds , about a scientist who hunts for dinosaurs. 28, that the takeover was not in the public Network. Global is the third largest private Allan Kroeker (Tramp At The Door, Hea vell 011 Earth) will direct. Great North also recently interest and said that " CFPL failed to convince network in Canada and in a position to go acquired therights to Alberta author Ross Annett's Especially Babe, a coll ection of short stories the Commission that it had developed a strategy national once this dispute is resolved. Global published in the Saturday Evelling Post behveen 1938 and 1962. The tales foc us on a widower or an effective business plan. " president Paul Morton and chairman of the farme r ra ising his children during the Depression. "They're so Alberta, " says producer Andy CFPLPresident Bob Elsdon told Cine1lla board of direc tors Seymour Epstein own 38 per Thomson who hopes to begin shooting the stories next summer. Canada that he was" extremely disappointed " cent of the network, but through an earlier The company also has completed photography on III Search Of Tile Dragon , a two-hour wi th the decision and he thought" we had put arrangement, the parties ha ve a 50-50 television documentary on the China -Canada Dinosaur Project. White still in together a good plan. " Last year CFPL, and its controlling share of the company. Morton and post-production, the program has been sold to PBS for its Nova science series, a telecast date sister sta tion in Wingham, Ont., disaffiliated Epstein sued Asper because they claimed he be set. from the CBC to go independent. Since then backed out of a deal to sell them controlling they have tried to fend off penetration into their interest, and Asper countersued, claiming HEAVYWEIGHTS BEHIND FILM CELEBRATION market from the larger Toronto independents Morton was guilty of "managerial misconduc t. " Canadian film Celebra tion '90, which runs in Calgary, March 28 - April 1, 1990, is beginning such as Global and City TV. "Our survival The dispute got nasty as Asper tried to take shape. The event, which will fea ture Canadian features, shorts, documentaries, depends on access to the Toronto market, or unsuccessfully to remove Morton as president, student films, workshops and a behind-the-scenes demonstration of a location shoot, includes getting access to someone who has access, ,. said and has been the subject 01 a great deal 01 media the Hon. Flora MacDonald, filmmaker Norman Jewison, and perlormer Kate Reid among its a bitter Elsdon. It is unclear ye t whether the speculation. The stakes are high and the bidding patrons. Publicist Ed Oliverio says that actors Michael J. Foxand John Candy may also make Blackburn Group, which owns CFPL and the should be intense. The former partners bought an ap pearance. - London Free Press newspaper, will put together the struggling network for $11.2 million in the another bid for CHCH, the oldest independent mid-seventies and the company is now valued at MOUNTAIN FILMS broadcaster in the country. close to $300 million. Asper has a history of The Banff Festival of Moun tain Films ran Nov. 3-5 in the resort town. The opening Maclean Hunter moved to buy Selkirk at the success in these sorts of dealings. Last year he presentahon was glVen by renowned Bnhsh mountameer Chris Bonington . Bonington has end 01 last year for a reported $600 million. It won control of CKVU-TV in B. C. after a long­ wntten books about many of hISwo rldWIde ascents; one of them, Everest Years , was made into then proceeded to sell off its assets to WIC running dispute with lormer partner Daryl a documentary that ca ptured top prizes at th e 1988 New York Film and TV Festival. Communications 01 Vancou ver, Rogers Duke.

PAGE 30 CINEMA CANADA NOvutBIR 1989