Acclaimed actor Peter Donaldson, whose television roles included Reverend Leonard in Road to Avonlea and Ian Bowles in Emily of New Moon, died on 8 January 2011 at the age of 58. He is survived by his wife, actor Sheila McCarthy, and their two daughters. For more details, see articles in the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.

There is a new website for the Anime version of Before Green Gables, which has been airing on Japanese television as Konnichiwa Anne since April 2009. The series is directed by Katsuyoshi Yatabe and is produced by Nippon Animation, which produced the 1979 Akage no An anime. See also the entry on Konnichiwa Anne on the Anime News Network. Thanks to Yuka for bringing this to my attention.

The Sullivan Entertainment telefilm Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning has been nominated for two Director’s Guild of Canada awards, one for Best Television Movie/Miniseries and one for Ray Lorenz for Best Production Design in a Television Movie/Miniseries. The results will be known at the awards gala on 24 October 2009.

In addition, the telefilm was nominated for three Gemini Awards: for Best Costume Design (Martha Mann), Best Achievement in Make-Up (Lynda McCormack and Madeleine Russell) and Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Program or Miniseries (Barbara Hershey). For more information, visit the website for the 24th Annual Gemini Awards.

Sullivan Entertainment has announced on its Anne of Green Gables website that its latest film, Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, will air on CTV on 14 December 2008, at 7:00 PM. They include a detailed synopsis:

It is 1945 and Anne Shirley (Academy-award nominee and Golden Globe winner, Barbara Hershey) now a successful, middle-aged writer has returned to Prince Edward Island for an extended visit. On a whim, she agrees to write a play for a theatre producer. The play, she reasons, will keep her busy—at least busy enough to not go out of her mind with worry about her only son who has yet to return from the war overseas. But a long-hidden secret in the form of a letter from her errant father, discovered under the floorboards at Green Gables, provides a distraction of its own. As Anne struggles to complete the play, she delves into long-buried memories, reliving the troubled years before she arrived as an orphan at the Green Gables farmhouse. She is forced to confront the fact that she made up stories about her life; after her mother died and when her father deserted his young daughter. During that time, Young Anne (newcomer Hannah Endicott-Douglas), is taken into the care of a wealthy matriarch, Amelia Thomas (Academy-award winner Shirley MacLaine) and her daughter-in-law, Louisa (Rachel Blanchard), which changes her life forever.

Over the course of one remarkable summer, Anne Shirley discovers the astonishing truth about her father, the origins of her quest for “kindred spirits” and the roots of her brilliant, magical imagination.

A new trailer for the telefilm is now available at Sullivan’s Anne of Green Gables website. While there is not yet any news about broadcast dates outside of Canada, they have also announced that the film will be released on DVD shortly.