Category: media

The National Film Board of Canada has looked within itself to find its new commissioner, appointing NFB director-general of English programming Tom Perlmutter to the top post. Perlmutter has been given credit for much of the NFB’s recent international success. “But is it a good thing to have an ideas guy mired in institutional thinking?”

The rush to create new modes of digital encryption for music and movies has been matched only by the stampede to defeat them. But with legal threats against those suspected of illegal file-sharing proving to be an expensive and controversial strategy, those in charge of protecting copyright have little choice but to work to stay one step ahead of the hackers and pirates through technological means.

“Oscar-winning film director Martin Scorsese is spearheading a new body aimed at salvaging neglected films… [The World Cinema Foundation] would focus on films from developing countries. Scorsese told reporters he feared seminal foreign films could deteriorate or disappear entirely.”

“Last week the next phase in the theatrical viewing experience took a significant leap forward, as Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson signed on to direct and produce for Paramount’s DreamWorks Studios a trilogy of 3-D movies about the intrepid Belgian comic-book hero Tintin. And on Saturday nearly an hour of footage from the 3-D concert film of the Irish rock band U2 made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival.” So is 3-D the future of moviegoing? Some major players would like it to be.

Only months after expressing outrage over what it deemed the racist content of the Hollywood war movie 300, the government of Iran is protesting the inclusion of “an animated film about a woman growing up in revolutionary Iran” in the Cannes Film Festival. Calling the film’s selection a transparently political act, Iranian officials say that the film paints “an unreal picture of the outcomes and achievements of the Islamic revolution.”

UK-based recording industry giant EMI has agreed to be acquired by a private equity firm for £3.2bn ($6.3bn). The deal comes less than a year after EMI declined a merger offer from Warner Music, and Warner could still make a competing offer before EMI’s shareholders vote to approve the offer on the table.

In case anyone wondered, the recording industry is still suing college students for downloading free music, and students are still expressing shock that there are financial consequences for illegal piracy. “The students coughing up the cash question why they’re the ones getting in trouble,” and the industry wonders why they’re portrayed as the bad guys for legally enforcing their copyright. And around and around it goes…

A Canadian watchdog group says that the country’s TV broadcasters are buying more American programs than ever before, and using public money intended to encourage homegrown productions to do it.

“In what could be an ominous sign of a business in decline, the largest talent agency in Toronto catering to the movie and television industries has decided to close down for at least 18 months… What has been hurting the local industry most of late and prompting American producers to stay below the border is the high value of the Canadian dollar.”

Roman Polanski apparently has little patience for either the press or his fellow directors at Cannes. The renowned (and reviled) Polanski has caused two distinct stirs at this year’s edition of the festival, criticizing the gloomy outlook of two other directors on the future of the industry, and stalking out of a press event after complaining of “empty questions” from critics.