Ontario Scene

`urban story of love and destiny’

After stops at the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals with Eclipse, director/writer/coproducer Jeremy Podeswa and coproducer Camelia Frieberg are off to Cinemart in Rotterdam to pitch a new feature, The Five Senses.

Like Eclipse, the new project is a romantically themed pic. Podeswa describes it as ‘an urban story about love and destinyÉa many-charactered film in which all the characters find their soul mates in unexpected ways.’

The story, set in Toronto, revolves around eight leads including a massage therapist, a man obsessed with smells, and a couple who work for a producer of artificial aromas.

Five Senses does not use the daisy-chain structure of Eclipse, but a less episodic, interweaving narrative that Podeswa describes as ‘Altmanesque.’

‘Metaphorically, the film deals with how our senses have become dulled through modern living,’ he says.

Things look hopeful that Wolfram Tichy and Regina Schmidt of German distributor Time – the team who saved Eclipse from near-death with a $100,000 investment – will come on board for Five Senses.

Podeswa is also hoping dop Miroslaw Baszak and the Eclipse crew will be available for the new feature.

Two in development for Ferns and Cohen

Producers Annette Cohen and Pat Ferns, formerly partners in Primedia, are in development on two features – one headed for production in Scotland and the other pegged for shooting at home.

Toronto-bound is The Arm of the Carnivore, a coventure between Cohen, Ferns and Talisman (Rob Roy) of the u.k., with Douglas Cooper writing and an undisclosed British director attached.

Cohen says the script is presently being read by three prominent Hollywood stars for the lead.

The budget, depending on casting, will be anywhere from $3 million to $5 million.

Our hero is a quirky, troubled gen-xer (what other kinds are there?) who is struggling to come to grips with his life. There are two women involved, and three makes a love triangle.

Cohen says they hope to go into production late summer for a maximum eight-week shoot. Toronto will get to play itself – with the Royal Ontario Museum figuring prominently. Plans are to get one American name for the lead and cast the rest of the picture at home.

Laidlaw is a Ferns-Cohen production based on a novel of the same name that Cohen has held the rights to for over seven years. Taking on other feature projects (April One, The Burning Season) kept the producer too busy in the past, but now she is determined to get it off the ground.

Harvey Crossland (The Burning Season) is writing the screenplay – based on the novel by Glaswegian William McIlvanney – and he has just delivered the first draft of a complete rewrite.

The story is a manhunt, led by a policeman and some unwelcome killers who are on the prowl for various and nefarious reasons. The members of the hunt represent factions in the underworld of Glasgow – collectively known as ‘The Hard Men.’ There is no question, says Cohen, she plans to shoot on location.

Nothing in the way of coproducers has been finalized, but Cohen is looking in the u.k. She estimates the budget in the $8 million to $12 million range. ‘We really want major casting for it. Both Pat and I feel that the Canadian model of the small feature film is a great learning curve, but not the place where you want to live,’ she says.

T.O. address for Polygram

Polygram Filmed Entertainment’s new office in Toronto has plans to distribute Gramercy Pictures product and to develop coproductions. pfe president Darryl Iwai says because distribution is his priority, no one has yet been appointed to head up coventures. In the meantime, he is the contact. Most recently, Polygram International coproduced the feature film Le Confessional with Cinemaginaire of Montreal.

Sizzling Sullivan

The production company synonymous with Road to Avonlea and now Butterbox Babies has just added three new development deals to its slate. Sullivan Entertainment has two new mows and one four-hour miniseries in the works, all of which will shoot here, says president Kevin Sullivan.

In the Name of the People, an nbc mow, is penned by Tim Boland, based on his play of the same name, about a couple tormented by an outrageous request from their daughter’s killer. An order from the network is expected within the next few months.

After some serious negotiating, Sullivan has just picked up the rights to The Whip, a four-hour miniseries written by Americans Karen Kondazian and Tara Bowles. Seems the scribes created such a perfect tale that a small bidding war ensued when the William Morris Agency sent it out for consideration.

The life of Charley Parkhurst, a mid-19th century stage driver extraordinaire who disguised herself as a man in order to work and to avenge the murder of her black lover, was the inspiration.

Sullivan says the project is signed to a major u.s. network, but he won’t say which one. Currently, an American name lead is being sought for the role of Parkhurst.

Sullivan has also picked up The Gathering, a tv movie written by Sharon Riis (who is scripting the epic Revenge of the Land for cbc). Based on the novel by Australian Isobelle Carmody, the mow pits a teenage boy against the inhabitants of a small town besieged by a monolithic, evil force.

Coming up for production in the near future for Sullivan are the abc tv movie, Only the Angels Listened (which is expecting a production order by early February); The Earth Abideth, a cbs miniseries at the first draft stage; and four feature films – Four Arrows, B Movie, Franny and Rosetta and The Snow Queen – which Sullivan is in the midst of packaging.

Is that animal, mineral or vegetable?

Owl Communications has just wrapped production in Ottawa on Wacky Palms, a bestial pilot for Baton Broadcasting. The sitcom, set at a tacky resort, features a cast of puppets. Starring is Miss Mou Mou, a funky old cow who owns the joint, and her animal friends – Zit, the turkey vulture, a technologically-adept armadillo and a house band called Johnny Crow and the Starlings. Owl calls the pilot ‘raucous and slapstick.’

Coproducer and puppeteer is Noreen Young (working with marionette man Ronnie Burkett) and her eponymous production company (Under the Umbrella Tree). Wayne Arron (Spirit Rider) coproduced with Young, Chuck Rubin (Care Bears) directed, and Bob Stutt (Sesame Street) wrote the pilot with Richard Mortimer (Sharon, Lois and Bram).

The show, hopefully headed for a 13-part series, targets the six to nine age bracket, says executive producer Annabel Slaight.

Carmody hangs his shingle in Hogtown

Although the new mgm feature Before I Wake has kicked the bucket, producer Don Carmody will be sticking around.

The l.a.-based producer recently commented that he can’t seem to get out of Hogtown, so now he plans to set up shop here with a television production company.

Before I Wake got shut down because mgm execs thought the price tag was too high, says Carmody. ‘It was too expensive for the (horror) genre. But we are looking for another studio.’ The jump in budget was apparently due to computer-generated special effects.

Coproducer Peter Grunwald and director George Romero are still onside and, if the picture is rejuvenated, Carmody says they are looking for a Canadian dop. He’s hoping to have a new studio attached within the month.