December 14, 2000

Investment decisions announced for the first quarter of 2001.

Two dramatic television series were awarded funding by the Board of Directors of the Independent Production Fund at its meeting of December 5, 2000:

AD 2030, produced by Minds Eye Pictures will be broadcast by YTV launching in September 2001. Set in a future world populated by genetically superior people who live only to the age of 40, the young protagonists search for answers to save themselves and humanity from the powerful corporation which is manipulating and controlling the world.

Lance et Compte: The Next Generation, produced by Communications Claude Héroux will be broadcast by TQS in 2001. The characters of the highly successful original series return a decade later to a very different world of hockey. Now at mid-life, Pierre Lambert has become a player's agent with a son who has been inspired by the hockey fame of his father.

In addition, three Special Projects received IPF grants: Banff Television Festival 2001, the Canadian Film Centre's Prime Time Television Resident's Program, and the Institut national de l'image et du son.

The Independent Production Fund was created in 1990 with a mandate to encourage the production of dramatic television series produced by independent producers for private broadcasters. The Fund has invested nearly $30 million in the Canadian television industry. It is managed by an independent Board of Directors composed of 6 members: Peter Mortimer (President), Robert Roy (Vice-President), Paul Gratton, Heather McGillivray, Bernard Montigny and Denise Robert.

The IPF also administers the Cogeco Program Development Fund and the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund.

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