Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children, presented by the Toronto International Film Festival Group, is considered one of the most important children's film festivals in the world. Sprockets, programmed for children and youth, 3-18, offers the best in contemporary Canadian and international children's cinema. In addition to two public weekends of programming, Sprockets also includes the hugely popular behind-the-scenes film workshops, and a week-long school program with support materials for teachers. Numerous awards are presented at the end of the festival. Further information and submission forms can be found on the official Website at www.bell.ca/sprockets.

The Toronto Animated Image Society is hosting its annual holiday party. This year's party will also include our first-ever silent auction. Start your holiday season up right at the only party in town where you can get cool holiday gifts and drink eggnog at the same time. The party will take place at the National Film Board from 7:00 to 11:00 pm. For more information, call (416) 533-7889, visit e-mail: Tais@bellnet.ca or visit www.awn.com/tais.

The Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival, now in its 58th year, is the longest running festival of its kind in Canada. Over the years, the festival has garnered an esteemed reputation as one of the country's top film and video festivals; a reputation that attracts outstanding entries and personalities from across Canada. Established in 1947 as the Yorkton Film Council, the first festival was held in 1950, making it Canada's first Short Film & Video Festival. The very first Golden Sheaf Award was introduced in 1958 and was presented to the most outstanding film entry in the festival. The Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival has undergone many changes since the first festival and is now celebrating more than 56 years of great shorts and currently presents Golden Sheaf Awards in 17 genre categories, 10 craft awards categories, cash and specialty awards. The festival is held every spring and includes: Canada's Golden Sheaf Awards, mini cinema, workshops and social events. For more information contact the festival at 49 Smith Street East, Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada S3N 0H4; tel.: (306) 782-7077; fax: (306) 782-1550; e-mail: info@yorktonshortfilm.org; or Web: www.yorktonshortfilm.org.

YOW Animation presents an informal animated evening with Mark Edwards on Financing and Pitching for Animation, on Wednesday, February 9, 2005 at 7:30 pm at The Royal Oak, 161 Laurier Avenue East (lower level), Ottawa, Canada. Admission is free and open to the public.

Edwards will provide an overview of the processes of financing animation projects for various markets, including working with broadcasters and distributors, both in Canada and internationally. He will also give an overview of pitching projects for film and television. There will be time for Q&A, so please feel free to bring your questions and queries for Edwards .

Mark Edwards is the founder of Edwards Law, an Entertainment and Technology Law practice, and is exec producer of a number of current film and television productions. Prior to returning to private practice Edwards was coo, head of business affairs and a producer with Amberwood Ent. Corp. from 1997 to 2004. In these various roles Mark established, staffed and managed the operations, supervised the accounting, headed legal and business affairs, and produced 156 half hour episodes of television animation with combined budgets in excess of $52 million.

YOW Animation is a social group in Ottawa for anyone interested in animation.

The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF 05) is North America's oldest and largest animation festival. The festival is broken up into four umbrella categories. The first is for animated feature films. The New Media Competition covers Animation Short Made for the Internet, Internet series, interactive animation and "Machinima," films made with videogame software. Commissioned Films Competition covers educational, scientific or industrial film, advertising film, station-program identification, music video, television special, television pilot, television series for adults and television series for children. Independent Short Films Competition covers narrative short film under 35 minutes, non-narrative short film under 35 minutes, first film and films made for children. Founded in 1976, and held biennially ever since, the OIAF attracts international animators, producers, broadcasters, and enthusiasts to Ottawa to view films entered in and out of competition, and attend special screenings and workshops that ponder the current state and future of animation. For more information, visit www.animationfestival.ca or www.awn.com/ottawa, e-mail info@animationfestival.ca or call (613) 232-8769.

Alias is hosting a pre-Oscar sendoff and unique opportunity to see Oscar hopeful and former Alias employee Chris Landreth screen and discuss the making of RYAN with a new and upcoming crop of Canadian filmmaking talent. Landreth will also participate in a roundtable discussion about the future of animation and independent filmmaking, along with industry experts from the National Film Board of Canada, Seneca College and Alias.

The event will take place at 11:00 am at Alias, 210 King Street East, Toronto. For further information and to RSVP, contact Elisabeth Napolano, Environics Communications for Alias at (416) 969-2705 or enapolano@environicspr.com.

The Canadian chapter of Women in Animation (WIA - Canada) will host its first annual animation & games career fair. Potential applicants will gather for a unique opportunity to hear from and meet leading studios from around Vancouver. Recruiting teams will include top Vancouver companies such as aka Cartoon, Atomic Cartoons, Bardel Ent., Electronic Arts, Mainframe Ent., National Film Board of Canada (NFB), Nerd Corps, Radical Ent. and Studio B Prods.

Studios will have up to 10 minutes each to present their companies and describe what they are looking for in potential applicants. Once each studio has finished their presentations students/applicants will break out into pre-assigned groups and begin a group interview rotation among the studios. Each studio will see six groups through the course of the evening; each group will consist of six students/applicants. The group interview rotation will begin around 7:30 and wrap up around 9:00 pm.

Students/applicants will be able to pre-register for the rotating interviews by e-mailing a list of companies (in order of preference) that they would like to meet with to wiacareerfair.registration@telus.net. Confirmation of your registration will be given by return email. The deadline for pre-registration is 6:00 pm on Feb. 18. A maximum of six companies will be assigned on a first come first served basis. Meeting with specific companies cannot be guaranteed due to limited seating. The event will take place at the VFS Web Caf

Massive 2005 is a full-day conference and tradeshow showcasing eBusiness tools for SMEs and tech-toys for work. Through a combination of informative presentations and more than 100 interactive displays, this event will educate business professionals in an entertaining and refreshing environment. The event will take place at SCIENCE WORLD, 1455 Quebec Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada. To learn more, contact Shana Korotash at BC TIA by e-mailing skorotash@bctia.org or calling (604) 602-5232.

The Banff World Television Festival celebrates the art and business of television production. The event will offer a full slate of sessions on the issues that are central to those working in international co-production and genres. Conference sessions will address successful collaborations and business models for co-financing, funding and marketing television programming as well as emerging genres and burgeoning technologies such as HDTV. There will also be major sessions around treaty and international co-production issues across genres, with the goal of finding solutions to open more doors on co-production among treaty and non-treaty partners. Case studies and master sessions will also examine the anatomy of recent successful co-production projects. BANFF continues its tradition of facilitating new business opportunities with the continuation of its famous pitching competitions: Market Simulation, New Players Pitch, iPitch for interactive projects and the world's most lucrative pitch - CTV Canadian Documart. These competitions offer producers the opportunity to pitch their hot new ideas to a distinguished group of international broadcasters and decision-makers. Sessions also encourage broadcasters to share programming needs as well as discuss programming trends and emerging technologies with producers from around the world. The Banff World Television Festival is owned by the Banff Television Festival Foundation and is produced by Achilles Media Ltd. on behalf of the Foundation's Board of Directors and Board of Governors. The Foundation's Board of Governors is international in scope and represents the cr

Women in Animation Canada presents the Best of Ottawa 2004, including Academy Award-winner RYAN by Chris Landreth. The Best of Ottawa 2004 showcases the best of the best animation from around the world. This program presents samples of award winning animation in a number of different formats including short films, TV series and commercials, music videos, Internet shorts and more.

The program is 100 minutes long and features:
* 2004 OIAF Signal Film #1 and #3 /