Sea to sea - Canadian movie production

East Coast

The official opening party for the massive, four-studio complex Electropolis on the Halifax waterfront, marked a new era for East Coast filmmaking. Almost 3,000 people packed themselves into the former electrical generation station. The studio has already snagged several major bookings, including Thom Fitzgerald's Beefcake, the follow-up to his hugely successful The Hanging Garden, the musical variety Celtic Electric, and 20 more one-hour episodes of Salter Street's The Lexx: Tales From the Dark Zone. One of Electropolis's studios can actually be flooded, making it one of the few in North America that can be used for the expected rush of Titanic clones. The success of Cameron's epic, which was partially shot in Halifax, is expected to bring a bonanza of international production to the Atlantic region... Local filmmakers have been moving into drama lately, expecting new opportunities from Baton Broadcasting's commitment to more East Coast programming in the wake of its takeover of the CTV network. Former Atlantic Film Festival artistic director Johanna Montgomery has accepted the challenge of being Baton's Atlantic program development officer... Fredericton, N.B., witnessed the long-awaited premiere of Erroll Williams's documentary on the first black NHL player, Willie O'Ree. O'Ree, an East Coast sports legend now living in California, played for the Boston Bruins in the early 1960s. Another East Coast film dealing with cultural differences, the NFB-produced Bronwen and Yaffa: Moving Towards Tolerance, recently won the prestigious Japan Foundation President's Prize at the 24th International Educational Program Contest. Director Peter d'Entremont and producer Mike Mahoney, along with the two young women of the title, were filmed over a five-day period by a Japanese crew as they workshopped the film in local schools... Newfoundland finally got an indigenous feature underway this winter with John Doyle's Extraordinary Visitor. Revisiting a short of the same name from more than 10 years ago, the film tells the story of a religious figure dropped in the middle of contemporary St. John's. Mary Walsh and Andy Jones head the cast... As a new era begins in the booming East Coast scene, another just ended with the passing of pioneer filmmaker Margaret Perry. Perry, who made travelogues, industrials and promotional films from the 1930s up until the 1960s, shot, directed, wrote and edited almost 50 films virtually by herself, working out of Halifax for various government departments. One of the few women directors of her time (making her a contemporary of Ida Lupino and Maya Daren), Perry has a major prize named after her at the Atlantic Film Festival for Best Nova Scotia Film. Perry was 91.

Montreal

Over the last few months, as Louis Saia's Les Boys hit Quebec screens with a bang, Quebecers' overwhelming adoration for their national sport reached a truly unheard of magnitude. The film's premise is simple enough: every Monday night, 11 ordinary men leave their women and jobs behind to meet and play a mean game of pickup hockey. Les Boys, the feature debut from master sketch comedy writer Saia, marks the birth of a new cultural phenomenon. Since its release in December 1997, the film has become a multiple record breaker. Some statistics? The film's premiere marked the opening of the Quartier Latin Cinemas in Montreal, Canada's largest movie complex, playing in 17 theatres simultaneously. An unprecedented 52 prints were launched in the province, from Hull to Labrador City, quickly increasing to 65 prints over the holiday season. At press time, box office had reached $4.6 million in Quebec alone. Les Boys has become the highest grosser in Quebec film history, beating out the previous number one, Robert Menard's Cruising Bar, which maxed out at $3.4 million in 1989. Last but not least, Les Boys now ranks third in the very select club of top Quebec grossers among "French" films (original or dubbed versions), after Le Titanic and Le Parc jurassique. By the time you read this article, it is estimated that the film will have reached the $5-million mark. Les Boys is already playing to very strong audiences in Moncton, N.B., and, if all goes well, should be released in the rest of the country in the coming months... Having said all that, Louis Saia's saga is not the only film occupying the headlines, and 1998 will indeed be an interesting year for Quebec cinema. La Deroute, Paul Tana's latest Canadian-Italian chronicle, opened Rendez-vous du cinema Quebecois last year. The film stars Tony Nardi and Michele-Barbara Pelletier as a father and his daughter caught in a love/hate relationship. As always, Tana's sensitive touch works wonders. Another director known for his sensitive portrayals of Quebec slice of life, famed cinematographer/director Michel Brault, is back at work on his latest, a historical drama called Quand je serai parti...vous vivrez encore, which tackles the same topic as Pierre Falardeau's troubled project 15 fevrier 1839, namely the Patriots and the 1837 Rebellion. Featuring a stellar cast headed by television star Francis Reddy, the film is also a true family affair, with Brault's son Sylvain at the helm as cinematographer and daughter Anouk producing with veteran producer Claudio Luca.

Toronto

For years Toronto director Jerry Ciccoritti (Paris, France) had been wanting to make a movie based on his Italian-Canadian experiences. His dream came true when the script for Boy Meets Girl fell on his lap. Set in Toronto's Little Italy--the College Street one--Boy Meets Girl is a modern-day fairy tale about a spell cast on an Italian waitress (Emily Hampshire) and a cynical writer (Sean Astin), neither of whom speak the other's language. The film also stars Joe Mantegna and Kate Nelligan. "When I first got the script and I read it, I was charmed, but I thought it was very thin," says Ciccoritti from the set of the film. "Not shallow, but thin. I thought I'd like to do it and I started some notes for a rewrite, deepening the character conflicts and adding subplots. Then I realized that this was the wrong approach. Rather than digging below the surface, the script needed to be decorated. I accepted the simplicity and started to decorate it like a big, beautiful cake." ... The Alliance of Canadian Cinema Television and Radio Artists welcomed Heritage Minister Sheila Copps's announcement that the federal government will review existing Canadian feature-film policy. Provincial funding for films has been reduced considerably, especially in Ontario where funding for the Ontario Film Development Corp. was cut sharply in 1996. Copps promised to pay special attention to the financial support for Canadian films and the lack of screen time that American-owned Canadian exhibitors give them once they're made... Six Ontario communities each received a $5,000 donation from the province's film, television and commercial production industry recently as part of the Thank You Toronto/Ontario campaign. Each of the six areas had been featured in numerous film, television and commercial production shoots in 1997 ... Although the temperatures have dropped in T.O., the filming schedule hasn't. Currently shooting in and around the city are John Mackenzie's Aldrich Ames: America Betrayed starring Timothy Hutton; James Foley's The Corruptor starring Mark Wahlberg and Chow Yun-Fat; Peter Bogdanovich's Naked City II starring Scott Glenn and Courtney B. Vance; Christopher Menaul's Passion of Ayn Rand starring Helen Mirren and Eric Stoltz; Mike Newell's Pushing Tin starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton; and Gail Harvey's Striking Poses starring Shannen Doherty and Colm Feore, based on a script by Michael Stokes.

Winnipeg

Cheryl Ashton, former head of Manitoba Motion Pictures Industry Assoc. (MMPIA), is the new executive director of the Edmonton-based National Screen Institute (NSI). A very astute woman, with sharp fund-raising skills, she accomplished much in her three years at MMPIA--setting up a five-year strategic plan, crew and new media training programs, and a film-and-video production tax credit. Ashton worked hard to increase the profile of the industry in the province, crediting strong support from the provincial Conservative government. She was sought out by the board of the NSI after Jan Miller moved to Halifax. If all goes well, the NSI might be moving to Winnipeg. The MMPIA and other Winnipeg groups made a pitch to the board in January. The NSI will reach its decision in mid-March. Since Ralph Klein's government seems to be doing its best to eliminate all independent filmmaking from the province, will the last filmmaker to leave Alberta please turn out the lights... Local Heroes 98 has accepted two films from Winnipeg filmmakers--Gary Yates's satire of a small town tourist, The Big Pickle, and Carole O'Brien's Picture When... Jeff Erbach's new six-minute film Under Chad Valley (to be blown up to 35mm) promises to be as creepy as Soft Like Me, which recently played at the San Sebastian Horror and Fantasy Film Festival. During the shoot for Under Chad Valley, two kids in priest-like robes stood by two-and-a-half metre cow carcasses while butchers covered in blood walked in and out of the room... Epiphany Rules, a new half-hour directed by Paula Kelly and produced by Liz Jarvis of Buffalo Gal Pictures, was shot in early February. It's a dark coming-of-age story in which the fates of three people collide in a cloud of unrequited love... Two indie features are nearing completion: Caelum Vatnsdal's long-awaited 82-minute Black as Hell, Strong as Death, Sweet as Love, which is the story of dysfunctional relationships; and Adam Rodin's Hand is the story of three slackers who help out a sexually harassed ice-cream store clerk. According to insiders, Rodin has already set up screenings in New York and Los Angeles in a search for distributors.

The Prairies

The world of independent production seems to be on tenderhooks as filmmaking communities in both Alberta and Saskatchewan wait for governments to confirm tax credits as part of their 1998 budgets. In Alberta, the 1998 hope is thin, although recent government announcements are showing a change in its stalwart "slash" mentality. Alberta's Minister of Science, Research and Technology, Lorne Taylor, is working on a plan that will produce a tax credit for all knowledge-based industries, including film and television... In Saskatchewan, the outlook is more positive after the industry's two-year effort in crafting a plan that will give a 35-per cent labour credit to productions shot in the province, making it competitive with Manitoba, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. SaskFilm general manager Mark Prasuhn says he's waiting for final approval in early March. That news will come just in time for writer/director Gil Cardinal and his epic four-hour CBC-TV miniseries Big Bear, set to shoot for 15 weeks through this spring and summer. Based on the novel by Rudy Wiebe about one of Western Canada's greatest Indian chiefs, Cardinal and his producing partners Doug Cuthand and Dorothy Schreiber will team up with Teleaction Montreal for the $8-million blockbuster. "This is the largest-budget project ever seen in Saskatchewan," says Prasuhn. "It's a breakthrough on every level, in terms of aboriginal participation (Gordon Tootoosis is to star) and having a project of this historical and cultural importance shot here. It is a big step forward." ... Back in Alberta, the series Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is wrapping its first season of production. The show has been renewed for another round, but no guarantees as to whether or not Calgary will be the location. In Canmore, Burt Reynolds, basking in his Oscar nomination for Boogie Nights, plays a coach in Mystery Alaska, a Disney feature about an Alaskan hockey team that takes on the New York Rangers. But the United States isn't responsible for all the action, says Alberta Film Commission assistant director Brenda Maclean, who reports that Due South brought its business to Alberta for a mountain-adventure episode. Brad Fraser will also make his mark on Calgary's production roster in the year ahead with Poor Super Man, a National Screen Institute Features First project. Maclean acknowledged the importance of the tax credit to the future of independent production in Alberta, but noted that the CFCN production fund and the A-Channel's production fund were also supporting the industry at a dangerous time. In the meantime, she and Alberta Film Commission head, Murray Ord, continue their forays south of the border seeking to keep the local crews busy until Alberta producers can hire them again.

West Coast

Local writer/director Raul Sanchez Inglis--who honed his writing chops by working on genre pieces for the Vince brothers, among others--is in the editing room putting together his debut feature. While The Falling is a low-budget effort, it nevertheless managed to attract some of Vancouver's most talented young artists and technicians, DOP Greg Middleton among them. Vicki Southeran, Evan Tylor and Greg Malcolm are the producers. Reports from the set have guns figuring prominently in the genre pic's scenario...A typically wet February 3rd saw the commencement of shooting for the north-of-$40-million Universal film, Snow Falling on Cedars, the first to be directed by Aussie Scott Hicks since his celebrated Shine brought him fame and a chance to work in Hollywood. Scheduled to wrap in May, the film stars Ethan Hawke (Great Expectations) and Youki Kudoh, currently on screen in the Russell Crowe-vehicle, Heaven's Burning, but is more famously known for her affecting turn in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train. Ex-Amblin execs Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall are the executive producers while Richard Vane serves as producer... The January/February issue of Reel West, the local industry bible, reported that British Columbia was home to more than 100 productions--TV series, movies of the week and features--in 1997, a number that should continue to increase now that the provincial government has introduced a tax credit scheme... Finally, what would this column be without at least one reference to The X-Files (and don't say "better")? Everyone has been talking about the inevitability of a move to Los Angeles to appease David Duchovny. Well, rumour on the set has it that the show's creator Chris Carter has just signed with Fox for two more years as executive producer. Carter is known to be a big fan of Vancouver and its varied locations (not to mention the devalued Canadian dollar) and my source has suggested that his signing on for two more years means the show is staying in Vancouver. Which, if proven true, will be a big relief to all the locals who make their livelihood from the series. And if my source is wrong, it just goes to show that you really should "trust no one."

COPYRIGHT 1998 Canadian Independent Film & Television Publishing Association
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