The 26th Banff World Television Festival finished on an exceptionally high note Wednesday, when Brett Gaylor of Etherworks walked off with a $50,000 cheque for further development of Puff Daddy, a humorous and personal documentary project about a marijuana grow operation. Gaylor won first prize at the $100,000 CTV Documart, the richest pitch in the world. The $30,000 second prize went to Daniel Cross of EyeSteelFilm for Game Over: The Rise and Fall of Atari, about a video games visionary. The third place winner, Roxanne Gregory from Ronin Inc., took home $20,000 for her pitch Forgotten Lives, which will document the tragic mistreatment of institutionalized children in a B.C. facility. [ Complete Story ]

It was a record-shattering night for the British Broadcasting Corporation at the 26th Banff Rockie Awards: Its programs won the $50,000 Global Television Grand Prize and half-a-dozen category awards at the world's most inclusive and prestigious international program competition. The BBC's Blackpool was named best-of-festival by a blue-ribbon international jury led by Banff's founding chairman, Fil Fraser. "Blackpool stood out in an excellent competitive field by virtue of its highly creative and innovative synthesis of music and drama in the exploration of human relationships," said Fraser. "What emerges in this production is nothing less than a new genre of television programming, a major step forward in advancing the kind of quality television that this festival was born to celebrate." Blackpool also won the Banff Rockie for Best Mini-Series.
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Anthony E. Zuiker, creator and executive producer of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, will join the stellar line-up of Masters attending the Festival this June. A special "60 Minutes with Anthony E. Zuiker" will take place on Monday, June 13. [ Complete Story ]

Some of the sharpest minds in television are featured in the 2005 BANFF Masters line-up.
 • Jon Cassar, director and co-exec. producer '24'
 • Jeremy Podeswa, Carnivále, Six Feet Under
 • Bill Kurtis, Emmy Award-winning producer, A&E
 • Lionel Chetwynd, Academy Award-nominated writer
 • David Lyle, Fox Reality Channel, American Idol
 • Brent Butt, Comedian, Corner Gas
 • Peter Raymont (photograph), Shake Hands with the Devil
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