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Event ran September 12-13 concurrent Toronto International Film Festival.

The virtual 2021 Ontario Creates International Financing Forum (iff) that took place this month brought together feature producers on projects at various stages of development with industry executives and hosted more than 550 meetings.

Iff, which took place from September 12-13 concurrent with Toronto International Film Festival, invited 42 industry executives from the likes of Netflix, Neon, Voltage Pictures, The Match Factory and Protagonist Pictures. Charlotte Mickie, vice-president of Celluloid Dreams, said: “Iff is awesome. The offering is diverse and rich, and the conversations with the producers are so stimulating and provocative, in a good way.

BlockFilm, a Canada-based financing platform, is bringing private investors and content creators together via a safe financing online platform using digital security tokens, the company announced today.

Digital security tokens using blockchains to connect private investors with content creators are something fairly new that has been used in real estate, for example, says Pauline Couture, co-ceo of BlockFilm. Together with Suzette Couture, no relation, she set up the global platform that they started working on in 2019 with backing from the Canada Media Fund. Pauline is based in Toronto while Suzette is headquartered in Los Angeles. Film producer Charlotte Mickie is also part of the company.

“We have a reputation of playing well with others,” Pauline Couture said. “Everyone has financing issues in indie films.”

BlockFilm offers private investors a place to put their money and gets indie filmmakers financing, with the idea of getting passion projects to completion faster. The...

Alyssa Milano will star in a feature film adaption of Nora Roberts’ romance thriller Brazen Virtue.

Netflix is behind the project that will see Milano play Grace, a prominent mystery writer and crime expert, who hurries back to her family home in Washington, D.C., after her estranged sister summons her. When her sister is killed and her double life as a webcam performer is revealed, Grace ignores the warnings of a cool-headed detective and gets involved in the case.

Monika Mitchell is set to direct, having worked with the streamer on The Knight Before Christmas and the popular series Virgin River. Suzette Couture, Donald ...

Alyssa Milano will star in a feature film adaption of Nora Roberts’ romance thriller Brazen Virtue.

Netflix is behind the project that will see Milano play Grace, a prominent mystery writer and crime expert, who hurries back to her family home in Washington, D.C., after her estranged sister summons her. When her sister is killed and her double life as a webcam performer is revealed, Grace ignores the warnings of a cool-headed detective and gets involved in the case.

Monika Mitchell is set to direct, having worked with the streamer on The Knight Before Christmas and the popular series Virgin River. Suzette Couture, Donald ...

The Ace Series Special is running Nov 4-9 in Brussels.

European producers organisation Ace Producers has unveiled the selection of sixteen producers who will participate in its inaugural TV drama-focused initiative, the Ace Series Special, running Nov 4-9 in Brussels.

The programme is aimed at experienced producers who want to create a series division within their film companies and, or deepen their knowledge of developing and producing TV drama series for an international audience. Each participant will attend with a series project in the early stages of development

They include Belgium’s Bart Van Langendonck at Savage Film, who will...

Barbara Hershey is going behind bars in Left To Die. The Black Swan co-star and Oscar nominee will play an innocent woman thrown in an Ecuadorian jail for drug trafficking in the Lifetime TV movie, which begins production this month ahead of a 2013 premiere. Hershey’s character’s only hope is her daughter Tammi’s belief in her mother’s innocence and her fight to free her; Rachel Leigh Cook is set to play Tammi. Leon Ichaso is directing from a script by Agatha Dominik and Suzette Couture. Sony Pictures Television, Blue Blazer Productions and Sandbar Pictures will produce. Frank von Zerneck, Danielle von Zerneck, Elizabeth Zox Friedman, Greg Little and Tammi Chase will executive produce. Hershey — who currently appears on ABC’s Once Upon A Time playing Cora, the mother of the Evil Queen — is repped by Pakula/King & Associates, Impression Entertainment and attorney Marcy Morris.

Astral Media The Harold Greenberg Fund has revealed the list of upcoming films that will get financial support through its Script Development Program and Equity Investment Program.

The list reveals all the 27 films (chosen out of 139 applications), which are either in production or pre-production period, that will get some financial backing.

Story Optioning

The Flying Troutmans

Four Seasons Productions Inc.

Screenwriters: Semi Chellas and Miriam Toews

King Leary

Verite Films Inc.

Screenwriter: Paul Quarrington

The Outlander

Strada Films Inc. and Triptych Media Inc.

Screenwriter: Tbd

First Draft

Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet

Hand Picked Films Inc.

Screenwriter: Richard Bell

The Diary of Laura’s Twin

pUNK Films Inc.

Screenwriter: Laura Phillips

Don’t Talk To Irene

Alyson Richards Productions Inc.

Screenwriter: Pat Mills

King Leary

Verite Films Inc.

Screenwriter: Paul Quarrington

The Lizard Cage

Sienna Films Inc.

Screenwriter: David Vainola

Queen Kristina

Triptych Media Inc.

Screenwriter: Michel Marc Bouchard

Second...

Corus Entertainment announced the identity of its Corus Made with Pay Fund recipients. Of course, the recepients in question are actually 34 upcoming Canadian films.

By reading the press release, we can come to the conclusion that the high-profile upcoming films among the 34 recipients are:

King Leary, the novel from acclaimed screenwriter and author Paul Quarrington and Verite Films Inc., which follows the final adventure of old-timer Percival Leary, a one-time hockey legend, as he heads to Toronto to become the face of a marketing campaign. Quarrington’s previous works include Galveston, which was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Whale Music, winner of the Governor General’s Award for Fiction in 1989 and King Leary, winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal.Author and screenwriter Miriam Toews’ The Flying Troutmans brings her hilarious and heartwarming novel about a family’s road trip across Canada to life in collaboration with screenwriter Semi Chellas...

Movie Jungle has new clips in from NBC Entertainment's "The Last Templar," starring Mira Sorvino, Scott Foley, Victor Garber, Claudia Ferri, Larry Day, Anthony Lemke, Mark Antony Krupa and Don Jordan. Paulo Barzman ("Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde") directs the film. Suzette Couture writes the revised version of the screenplay based on the novel by Raymond Khoury. Airs on Sunday and Monday, January 25 and 26 (9-11 p.m. Et)...

Movie Jungle has new clips in from NBC Entertainment's "The Last Templar," starring Mira Sorvino, Scott Foley, Victor Garber, Claudia Ferri, Larry Day, Anthony Lemke, Mark Antony Krupa and Don Jordan. Paulo Barzman ("Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde") directs the film. Suzette Couture writes the revised version of the screenplay based on the novel by Raymond Khoury. Airs on Sunday and Monday, January 25 and 26 (9-11 p.m. Et)...

Movie Jungle has new clips in from NBC Entertainment's "The Last Templar," starring Mira Sorvino, Scott Foley, Victor Garber, Claudia Ferri, Larry Day, Anthony Lemke, Mark Antony Krupa and Don Jordan. Paulo Barzman ("Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde") directs the film. Suzette Couture writes the revised version of the screenplay based on the novel by Raymond Khoury. Airs on Sunday and Monday, January 25 and 26 (9-11 p.m. Et).In this four-hour miniseries, Oscar winner Mira Sorvino ("Mighty Aphrodite," "Mimic") stars in an epic action-adventure tale about the greatest mystery of modern time. As the journey begins, Tess Chaykin (Sorvino), a Manhattan archaeologist, reluctantly teams up with FBI agent Sean Daley (Scott Foley, "The Unit," "Felicity") – and the pair are drawn into a fast-paced, romantic adventure as they attempt to uncover the lost secrets of the legendary medieval Knights Templar. The miniseries also features Victor Garber ("Eli Stone," "Alias") as Monsignor De Angelis,...

Movie Jungle has new clips in from NBC Entertainment's "The Last Templar," starring Mira Sorvino, Scott Foley, Victor Garber, Claudia Ferri, Larry Day, Anthony Lemke, Mark Antony Krupa and Don Jordan. Paulo Barzman ("Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde") directs the film. Suzette Couture writes the revised version of the screenplay based on the novel by Raymond Khoury. Airs on Sunday and Monday, January 25 and 26 (9-11 p.m. Et)...

The Last Templar, a four hour miniseries starring Mira Sorvino, Victor Garber and Scott Foley has been scheduled to air on consecutive nights, January 25 and 26, at 9 p.m. Directed by Paolo Barzman (Grand Star), the miniseries was written by Suzette Couture (The Terrorist Next Door) based on Raymond Khoury‘s novel.

Sorvino will be Tess Chaykin, a Manhattan archaeologist who is drawn into a fast-paced, romantic adventure concerning the lost secrets of the medieval Knights Templar. Garber (Eli Stone) is Monsignor De Angelis, who steps in to help with the investigation to retrieve the lost artifact.

The Last Templar opens with the fall of the Latin Kingdom's reign in the Holy Land in Acre in 1291. As the burning city falls to the Sultan's forces, a lone galley escapes out to sea, carrying a young knight from the historic order of the Knights Templar, Martin of Carmaux, his mentor Aimard of Villiers,...

Joan Cusack has lined up two TV projects, developing a comedy at NBC set in the world of psychiatry and starring opposite Mae Whitman in the Lifetime original movie "Acceptance."

The NBC project, which she is co-creating with the network and Universal Media Studios, will be based on an original idea of Cusack's. John Markus ("The Larry Sanders Show") is serving as writer/executive producer, while Cusack will produce with Julie Yen.

"Acceptance," based on the novel by Susan Coll, is a dramedy that centers on an overachieveing high school student (Whitman) dealing with the stress of her senior year and applying to college. Complicating things is the fact that her parents are splitting up, and her mother (Cusack) is focused on getting her daughter into a top school so she's better able to find a husband.

Sanaa Hamri ("The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2") is directing from a script...