Nova Scotia film and TV producers want to tell the outside world they’re ready to do business, says Mike Volpe, chair of the board of directors of Screen Nova Scotia, which represents the 1,600 people working in film, television and digital animation in this province.

In the documentary Free Reins, director Jackie Torrens visits Hinchinbrook Farm, where different is normal, and meets McGill’s “tribe” of children with special needs.

Filmmakers Ashley McKenzie and Nelson MacDonald, cinematographer Scott Moore and actors Bhreagh MacNeil and Andrew Gillis are heading to Germany for their made-in-Cape Breton film’s screening in the prestigious Forum program.

Nova Scotia productions shone when the Canadian Screen Award nominations were announced on Wednesday. Weirdos earned six nods including best picture, Werewolf got four including best actor and actress, and TV series This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Mr. D each had multiple nominations.

A dusty Hants County gypsum mine is worlds away from the bucolic Southern Ontario farm country that is home to many Mennonites. But it’s the perfect setting for a climactic scene in Pure, the new CBC-TV drama about a Mennonite drug-trafficking ring that premieres on Monday, Jan. 9 at 9 p.m.

With Shannon Quinn’s feet flying as she fiddles and Ashley MacIsaac’s bow strings fraying, the music heats up even more as DJ Jay Andrews adds driving beats in the 45-minute special screening at the Atlantic Film Festival on Sunday.

A report on the economics of the screen industry in Nova Scotia confirms what filmmakers have been saying all along – “we can’t afford not to have a film industry in Nova Scotia,” says writer-director Michael Melski.