Habitat brings more high-def

feature action to Montreal

Montreal: Dutch-born director Rene Daalder (Centipede, Massacre at Central High), a leading proponent of the new-wave school of ‘virtual reality’ filmmaking, is at the helm of Habitat, a $13 million science-fiction, effects-laden feature film being shot entirely in high-definition.

An official Canada/Holland coproduction, the film is being produced by Matrans Productions, with Pieter Kroonenberg, president of Kingsborough Pictures, and Claude Leger, president of Transfilm, producing. Malofilm’s Rene Malo is executive producer. The Dutch coproducer is Denis Wigman of Ecotopia.

A fantasy-adventure story of humankind trespassing on God’s private domain, the film is set in the not-so-distant future as ozone layer depletion has begun to empty city streets.

The central character, a teenage boy played by Balthazar Getty (Natural Born Killers, Judge Dred) discovers he alone has the ability to resist the deadly sun. The futuristic ‘Adam’ is first shunned, and then threatened, by the darkening civilization as his computer-generated home transforms into an ally for survival, a bizarre recreation of the Garden of Eden.

The film also stars Tcheky Karyo (Nikita), Alice Krige (Sleepwalker), Kenneth Welsh (Crocodile Dundee) and Laura Harris (Highlander: The Series).

Daalder, computer-effects designer on the features Robocop and Robocop II, Michael Apted’s Blink and Lawnmower Man II, has teamed up with four other special-effects aces on Habitat – Tom Brigham, recipient of a technical achievement Academy Award for his breakthrough work on the digital f/x morphing, visual effects supervisor Eric Mises Rosenfeld, Toronto-based concept artist John Fraser, and Sony technical advisor John Galt.

Claude Pare (Rainbow) is the production designer, Jean Lepine (Ready to Wear) is the dop, Gordon J. Smith is the makeup artist, and Helene Boulay is the pm. Habitat is crewed by the stcvq.

Elite Productions cast some 25 roles in the film, including Harris, Welsh, Kris Holdenreid, Daniel Pilon and Matthew Mackay.

Kroonenberg (The Sound and The Silence, Bethune: The Making of a Hero) was the cofounder, with David Patterson, of Montreal’s Filmline. He has been producing in l.a. for the past few years, but has plans for a slew of projects with Montreal producers such as Leger, Malo and Claude Castravelli.

Kroonenberg says the city is on the cutting edge of new movie technology, with the recent wrap of Filmline International’s high-definition film Rainbow, directed by Bob Hoskins, and now Habitat.

‘In the future all films will be shot in hd, because of the creative scope and the economy of producing digital special effects,’ he says.

Kroonenberg helped bring Habitat to Montreal and Transfilm after Daalder’s screenplay was handed to him by Gregory Cascante, president of l.a.-based August Entertainment, Habitat’s foreign exporter and a 50% investor in the film.

He plans to produce at least two big-budget features in Montreal in 1995, including a Malofilm project, The Cancer Industry, a suspense thriller with Oliver Stone slated to direct. All of which is rather good news for the local production industry.

As for Leger (Shadow of the Wolf/Highlander III), he and director/screenwriter Pierre Magny and recently signed French coproducer Lumiere are at the casting stage on another major feature film, Fossil Child (working title), tentatively set for a summer shoot in France, China and Montreal.

Transfilm’s $34 million sci-fi adventure film Highlander III, directed by Andy Morahan and coproduced with FallingCloud in the u.k. and Initial Groupe in France, was given a major release by Miramax on some 1,400 screens in the u.s. Jan. 27. The movie stars Christopher Lambert. In Canada, Malofilm Distribution will launch the film on at least 80 screens, 20 in Quebec.

Principal photography on Habitat began Dec. 29 at the Cite du Cinema soundstage, and lasts 40 shooting days to mid-March.

A tough tale to tell

One of our most dedicated documentary filmmakers, Sylvie Van Brabant, is directing The Last Stop (working title), a one-hour Maximage production examining the tough issue of teen suicide.

Produced by Ina Fichman at a cost of just over $100,000, the film will be broadcast on CBC Newsworld’s Rough Cuts in March.

It takes a close look at the recent and much-publicized story of three young men from Quebec who traveled to Vancouver to end their lives in a rented suburban storage locker.

Van Brabant obtained the 60-page journal/diary the three teens had prepared as a testament, and convinced the bereaved families the subject would be more appropriately handled by a documentary filmmaker than scores of newspapers and other national media.

The shoot pieces together the boys’ romantic vision – and the subsequent reality and pain – through interviews with police, their families and friends. Filming is nearly completed with Hi-8 location photography in Vancouver, in urban and northern Quebec, and in the communities of Labrador City and Fermont on the Quebec/Newfoundland border.

Van Brabant, who is also a producer through her company Productions du Rapide Blanc, has the patience of a social worker and devoted a great deal of her time to the families who needed someone to talk to.

Craft credits on The Last Stop go to dops Kirk Tougas and Carlos Ferrand, sound recordist Craig Lapp, and pm Lucie Lambert.

Current projects for Van Brabant include Mon Amour, My Love, a look at ‘mixed’ English/ French couples living outside Quebec, directed by her for the National Film Board; producing a documentary by Toronto filmmaker Judy Jackson on international adoption for tvontario’s The View From Here doc series; and producing Serge Giguere’s (Le Roi du drum) latest film, 9 St. Augustine, a portrait of a working priest who lives in rural Athabaska.

Fichman says Maximage has a busy slate for 1995, with plans to produce Mentir, a $2.8 million feature from Montreal writer Michelle Allen, as well as Towards a Promised Land, a documentary series on relations between Montreal’s Jewish community and the Quebecois.

Recent Maximage production includes Long Shots, a story of street kids directed by Maureen Marovitch and David Finch and a finalist in next month’s Hot Docs Awards, and La Force de l’age, a compelling mow directed by Fichman’s partner, Howard Goldberg, set to air on Super Ecran in April.

Pixart series examines aboriginal issues

Pixart has started production on Nations, the first Quebec tv magazine devoted to aboriginal issues.

The first of 59 planned half-hour episodes went to air on Radio-Quebec and Reseau de l’Information Jan. 24.

Andre Barro, Pixart’s vice-president, development and marketing, says the $3 million series has a talented Metis host, Michele Rouleau, and a fully integrated reporting and production team, including trainees.

Nations is being taped throughout Quebec with three segments per episode – the people who live in Native communities, reports on related social and political issues, including relations between men and women, and a third segment on history and culture.

Taping on the first 22 episodes wraps in May, with a restart set for July.

Gaston Gagnon is the series’ director/producer. Trainee journalists include Michele Audette and Veronique Thusky, directors are Bernard Beaupre, Eddy Malenfant and J.P. St-Louis.

Barro says Pixart plans to double its production activity in 1995, with a major expansion to drama and international coproduction.

Industry veteran Louise Ranger has joined the company to develop projects, which include a four-hour miniseries on the founder of St-Justine’s hospital, and an mow police thriller with interest from France’s sfp and France 2.

Headed by president and ceo Jacquelin Bouchard, Pixart has a successful home renovation show on the TVA Television Network, Completement marteau, and has produced five seasons of the Radio-Quebec environmental magazine, Feu vert. It recently wrapped the third installment of its award-winning youth specials, Ados Canada III.