From sea to sea - Canadian television and movie production

The East Coast

This year's Atlantic Film Festival was the biggest yet, nearly doubling last year's delegate's list while increasing both attendance and revenues. The big winners included John Doyle's end-of-the-millennium dramatic feature, Extraordinary Visitor, which copped awards for writing, direction, best actor and actress and art direction. Halifax documentarian Peter d'Entremont added three awards to his already crowded mantelpiece for his moving one-hour portrait of the life and art of Nova Scotia folk artist Maud Lewis. Coproduced with the National Film Board, The Illuminated Life of Maud Lewis won the Margaret Perry Award for the best Nova Scotia-made film. And Newfoundland actress and filmmaker Mary Lewis had a banner year with her marvellous half-hour memory film, When Ponds Freeze Over. Partially animated and completely charming, the film deservedly won her the major Telefilm Best Atlantic Short prize worth a cool $10,000. It also won in Toronto and Vancouver. Monique LeBlanc won The Rex Tasker Best Atlantic Documentary Award for her witty and inquisitive NFB-produced documentary, Cigarette. The film looks into the imagery and allure of smoking. Cigarette is a superemely accomplished follow-up to her award-winning debut, The Acadian Connection.... Another major Atlantic NFB documentary will hit the small screen for Valentine's Day on the CTV network. Barbara Doran's portrait of Harlequin Romance writers and their beefy cover stars, all taking a Caribbean cruise, entitled The Perfect Hero, is one of the most hotly anticipated films on the horizon... Meanwhile, New Brunswick has entered a period of film-industry instability with the resignation of New Brunswick film chief, Sam Grana. The "Picture Province" is still see-sawing between producing its own indigenous work and servicing outside producers hungering after the biggest tax credit in Canada (40 per cent)... Cape Breton is currently undergoing a filmmaking boom with Alan Moyle (Pump Up the Volume, Empire Records) at the helm of Canadian Film Centre grad Tricia Fish's first feature script, New Waterford Girls. Just around the corner, crews are hard at work filming sequences for the television version of the turn-of-the-century family drama, Pit Pony. Veteran director Eric Till is back for many of the 24 episodes.... Rick Mercer's Halifax-made series Made in Canada is a certified hit with ratings of around 700,000 per episode. An order of another 13 episodes has just landed on his desk. Looks like This Hour Has 22 Minutes will have to find another co-host.

Ron Foley Macdonald

Montreal

It's blockbuster time in Quebec! Sure, there's Hollywood heavyweights hitting the streets of Montreal all the time. Bette Midler, Pierce Brosnan and Paul Newman were seen shooting around town all summer, and now Denzel Washington is here working on Phillip Noyce's new thriller, The Bone Collector. But I'm talking about a brand new concept: Quebec-made, French-speaking blockbusters! Following last year's Les Boys's huge success, theatre director Denise Filiatrault's feature-film debut, the hilarious no-nonsense comedy C't'a ton tour, Laura Cadieux, the story of a group of overweight women who meet every week at a clinic to get a supposed miracle weight-loss treatment, has been earning megabucks since its mid-October release. By the time this column is published, box office should have reached the $3-million mark, thanks to Filiatrault's great adaptation of Michel Tremblay's famous novel, as well as to her wonderful cast of character actresses, led by Quebec songstress Ginette Reno. Then again, Les Boys II is just around the corner, ready to break some more box-office records. Getting another Christmas-time release, Louis Saia's follow-up to his smash hit male-bonding flick features the same band of eclectic characters, but this time, they're headed to France for a mean game of hockey. Another big-budget production that's been getting a lot of attention is Filmline's 22-episode TV series The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne. This historical/sci-fi family series, featuring wicked state-of-the-art digital special effects, is shooting in Montreal until the end of April 1999.... There is also a lot of independent action brewing in the background these days. In fact, three very interesting indie documentaries have garnered a lot of attention over the past few months. Oh Mother!, directed by Sara Morley and Sandra Dametto, examines three generations of mothers who share their personal visions of motherhood, which inherently challenge prevailing cultural myths and ideals. Tree Weeks, a hilarious piece by Ezra Soiferman and Adam Steinman, takes an enlightening look at Quebec Christmas-tree vendors in New York City. Tree Weeks will be broadcast on Radio-Canada and CBC Newsworld. Finally, real-life couple Maureen Marovitch and David Finch check out the state of relationships at the end of the century in When Two Won't Do, an intimate look at what's out there for people who've decided to look beyond traditional monogamy--namely, polygamy, or the active and consensual quest for multiple partners. The film will be in production until March 1999 and a fall 1999 release is expected.

Claire Valade

Toronto

During the hustle and bustle of the Toronto film fest, Alexandra Raffe announced that she would be returning to the private sector after a four-year stint as the head of the Ontario Film Development Corp.(OFDC). The announcement slipped by almost without notice, and knowing Raffe's modest style, this was probably deliberate. The Toronto Star picked up on the story in November, accrediting dark motives to the departure, but still no acknowledgment of Raffe's considerable accomplishments while head of the OFDC. As the producer of such contemporary Canadian classics as I've Heard the Mermaids Singing and Zero Patience, she accepted the position out of an old-fashioned notion of public service and was immediately handed the logistical nightmare of implementing the brutal 1995 cuts imposed by Ontario Premier Mike Harris. Almost overnight, the most successful equity-investment film-production program this country has ever seen was gone. But not, surprisingly, was Raffe. She stayed on tenaciously to meet, whenever she got the chance, Queen's Park bureaucrats to hold onto whatever she could for the corporation. In the end, film production became a dead issue but the OFDC stayed alive administering an impressive array of film-tax credits and implementing its Calling Card Programme, a program for entry-level shorts cosponsored with the private sector. The first Calling Card screening was held in the fall. Raffe was in large part responsible for saving the OFDC from the same fate as the AMPDC and she is to be thanked for hanging in when the going got rough and doing the right thing.... On the production front, Jeremy Podeswa has just finished work on his second feature, The Five Senses, with Daniel MacIvor, Gabrielle Rose, Pascale Brussieres and Molly Parker. Camelia Frieberg is producing. Ron Mann is completing work on the feature documentary, Grass, an examination of marijuana prohibition. Mann also served as executive producer on Brakhage, Jim Shedden's tribute to American avant-garde film icon, Stan Brakhage. Post has begun on Lost Aviators (working title), David Wellington's latest feature with a script by Semi Chellas and a cast that includes Marsha Mason and Lothaire Bluteau. Susan Caven is producing for Accent Entertainment.... In early 1999, the Toronto International Film Festival's film circuit will release a brand new print of Don Shebib's classic Goin' Down the Road. Recently restruck by TMN, The National Archives of Canada and Famous Players, the film will be distributed across the country.

Paul Townend

Winnipeg

The 35 per cent provincial tax credit has helped fuel an explosion of film production in Winnipeg in the last year. More film crews have been trained through MMPIA's training workshop program than ever before. Although the films are largely commercial and MOW's, they have been providing much needed work so local filmmakers can stay in the province. With all this increased film activity there are now two serious proposals to build a new production studio. Hopefully, with all this activity, Winnipeg filmmakers will still find time for their own ideas and retain the spirit of independent filmmaking.... The Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis and Video Pool in Winnipeg are developing an exciting touring package to reflect the explosion of new experimental video in Canada, including artists such as Steve Reinke, Doug Melnyk, Dennis Day, Robert Morin and Lorraine Dufour. Organized by curator Jenny Lion, the programs will open at the Walker centre in January 2000 and tour the United States and Canada.... Matt Holm is finishing up the picture cut for The Lost Bundefjord Expedition, about the turn-of-the-century survivors of the first all-Scandinavian expedition across Lake Winnipeg.... Guy Maddin is doing pick-up shots and hopes to complete two shorts, The Cock Crew and The Maldorer Tygers. Maddin is currently teaching a film production course at the University of Manitoba. He recently travelled to New York to introduce a screening of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg to honour the anniversary of his U.S.-based distributor, Zeitgeist Distribution.... Gene Walz's new book Cartoon Charlie: The Life and Times of Charlie Thorson sold out at the launch at The Ottawa International Animation Festival. Thorson was an Icelandic-Canadian artist and illustrator from Winnipeg who moved to L.A. and worked for Disney and Warner Bros. and MGM.... Shooting and editing is finished on the comedy The Top of the Food Chain. Director John Paizs says it was a thrill working with high-calibre Canadian and American actors including Peter Donaldson, Campbell Scott and Tom Everett Scott. Paizs is just one of several people involved with this project which is cowritten by Phil Bedard and Larry Lalonde. Top of the Food Chain is to be distributed in Canada by Red Sky.... Shot in digital video, John Paskievich's The Gypsies of Svinia premiered in early December. With the assistance of CIDA, Paskievich is getting a 16mm print struck which he hopes to take back to Svinia and screen for the gypsy community.

Dave Barber

The Prairies

The on-going saga of Alberta's film industry reached its climax this fall and now is in a gentle denouement. A sigh of relief was exhaled on October 8 when the provincial government confirmed there would be a new financial program to assist Alberta-based filmmakers and technicians. However, there remains a wisp of mystery around the new Alberta Film Development Program. There is indeed $5 million per year for the next three years to provide grants to filmmakers which will be based on the percentage of proposed production budgets expended in the province. The amount cannot exceed 10 per cent of the eligible production costs up to $750,000. Filmmakers are welcome to apply immediately, but in fact, details are being worked out as to how the funds will be administered and just how "cultural" the projects have to be and whether or not U.S.-based productions with an Alberta service producer can access the grant. While all this is being worked out, everyone is scratching their slightly singed heads, wondering how Alberta politicians managed to pull this one out of the fire at the 11th hour. Whatever. The industry is certainly glad they did.... Saskatchewan crews, not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, have been shooting full-bore. The two CBC mini-series, Big Bear and Revenge of the Land wrapped in the summer, creating a little elbow room for the feature film, Dark Summer, a coproduction between Winnipeg's Credo and Cinereta of Germany which was shot last fall.... The Incredible Story Studio, the series where kids get to write the scripts, finished its second season at the end of October just in time for The Maximum Dimension, season two, another kids series, starting in November. Whew! Tag-team producing....the team at Edge Entertainment of Saskatoon is also whistling a happy tune after its successful screening of Michael Anderson's Summer of the Monkeys at the Toronto film festival, a limited theatrical release in Canada and the subsequent purchase of the film by Disney for video distribution this Christmas.... Alberta's production schedule is not quite so robust given the circumstances, but The Jack Bull, an HBO movie starring John Cusack is due to wrap in mid-November. The film, a western morality tale, was written by Cusack's father Dick, based on the book Michael Kolhaas by Heinrich von Kleist. Cusack is also co-executive producer on the project.

Fran Humphreys

The West Coast

The 17th Vancouver International Film Festival--again a success, with attendance reaching 130,000--wrapped on October 11 with the Awards Gala at the Hotel Vancouver. The winner of the Federal Express Award for Most Popular Canadian Film was Vancouver director Sturla Gunnarsson's Such a Long Journey, a Canadian-British coproduction that garnered a standing ovation at its Opening Gala premiere. Runner-up was the B.C.-produced Heart of the Sun, directed by Francis Damberger, written and coproduced by Vancouver's Kim Hogan. Bruce Sweeney--aiming to shoot his third feature in the spring--added one more accolade to his growing list by copping the Telefilm Canada Award for Best Emerging Western Canadian Feature Film Director for his dark comedy Dirty, while Vancouver filmmaker Nathaniel Geary's "film poem," Keys to Kingdoms, nabbed the Telefilm Canada Award for Best Emerging Director of a Western Canadian Short or Mid-Length Film (is it just me or are these award names just a tad unwieldy?). Charles Biname and Monique Proulx shared the Rogers Award for Best Canadian Screenplay for Le Coeur au poing, the opening night film of the Canadian Images series, while Mary Lewis's When Ponds Freeze Over won the NFB's Best Animated Film honours.... The VIFF's 13th Annual Film and Television Industry Trade Forum featured the kind of high-profile guests that organizers Melanie Friesen (producer) and Frances Bergin Devenyi (associate producer) could only dream about in the past. Robert Towne (legendary screenwriter of Chinatown), Conrad Hall (Academy Award-winning cinematographer of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and Leon Gast (director of When We Were Kings) held court alongside such diverse personalities as writer/director/actor Don McKellar, production designer Jan Roelfs (responsible for many Peter Greenaway movies and twice Oscar-nominated, for Gattaca and Orlando) and, believe it or not, the Right Honourable Kim Campbell.... New Filmmakers' Day--a day devoted to encouraging and coaching new and emerging local filmmakers--again proved a highlight, especially the afternoon sessions which featured Roelfs, McKellar, director Anne Wheeler, producer Sharon McGowan, editor Reg Harkema, actors Babz Chula, Gabrielle Rose and others all knocking heads about the director's varying relationships with the DOP, editor, production designer and actor. Roelfs--who flew in for the day from New York where he is working on Robert De Niro's new film--stole the show with his charm, vast fund of information and terrific good sportsmanship as he continued to provide helpful information for several hours afterward at the end-of-day reception.

Jack Vermee

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