Number one for round two of the Canadian Film Centre’s Feature Film Project goes to camera in Toronto Nov. 13 for 20 days. The untitled project, made by The Feeler team of producer Elizabeth Yake and director Colleen Murphy, is a love triangle involving one woman and two shoemakers. Cast as Anna is Alberta Watson (Spanking the Monkey). Her lovers are Carey (Randy Hughson of The Feeler) and Paul, played by stage actor Hardee T. Lineham. Also starring is Carl Marotte, who plays Anna’s on-again, off-again boyfriend.

The story is written by Jaan Kolk (who cowrote The Feeler with Murphy) and based on his play, Hearts and Soles.

Yake says the film is darkly comic and set in downtown Toronto. She anticipates the most interesting location will be the Hockey Hall of Fame, if they get it. They are still negotiating the historical locale for a major scene that takes place in a Montreal Canadiens dressing room.

Hockey is a thread that runs throughout the film, says Yake, but she won’t say more since the script is still being fine-tuned.

This time around, the ffp films will have $375,000 in cash instead of $325,000 due to past problems with booking equipment and adequately compensating crew members. The rest of the $700,000 budget will be made up in deferrals.

Colin Brunton of the ffp is executive producing, associate producer is Janet Hadjidimitriou, dop is Christophe Bonniere, production designer is Raymond Lorenz and production manager is Rob Iveson.

Wiebke von Carolsfeld will be editing her first feature with the help of supervising editor Susan Shipton. Yake says they are in negotiations to get a deal for an Avid edit suite. Avid donated equipment and services to The Feeler.

New on the block

Joe’s So Mean to Josephine, Peter Wellington’s first feature film, shoots in Toronto Nov. 19 to Dec. 22. The low-budget film, produced by Susan Cavan of Accent Entertainment and written by Wellington, is a romance, set on the wrong side of the tracks, about a vulnerable university student and the brooding hoodlum she falls for.

Victoria Hirst is line producer and coproducer with Cavan, dop is Adam Swica (Material World), production designer is Lisa Lev (The Boys Club) and production manager is Alice O’Neil. At press time, none of the roles were cast yet by agent Jon Cumerford. Alliance Releasing is distributing.

Haggis sets up shop

Paul Haggis has set up Royal Canadian Motion Pictures, a company he established with partner Mark Harris of Mark Harris/IRS Management to produce television material in Canada and in the u.s. Dan Black and Michael Prupas did the legal work.

Haggis says there will be offices in Toronto and in l.a. and the emphasis will be on network series. At this stage, the company has no strings attached to either a distributor or network. For now, plans are to executive produce series that are his own, Haggis says. In addition to drumming up biz for rcmp, he is in Toronto from mid-October to mid-November directing an episode of Due South.

Adding to the festivities

Southern Ontario is getting its own festival circuit. Cam Haines, former head of Sudbury’s Cinefest, has stepped down from his post to develop a southern version of the Northern Film Circuit, a project he established in 1992 to bring selected titles to otherwise forgotten locations. With the help of the Toronto International Film Festival Group, which is administering the new Southern Ontario territory, Haines is spreading the commercial venture across the entire province. His goal is to have 20 cities up and running by next summer.

Newcomers so far this fall to the grassroots, community-based initiative include Barrie, Sarnia and Belleville, which will start screenings in January, Brantford, which began screenings earlier this month, and Oshawa, which started screenings in September.

The initiative is supported by Canadian distributors, Viacom Canada and Howard Johnson hotels.

With 10 Northern Ontario cities active, Haines projects over $200,000 in business this calendar year.

Power house

Power Pictures is rolling with three more mows this fall, bringing the number of service projects produced by the company this year to 14.

First up is Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct: Ice, an mow for nbc based on the McBain cop books. Production starts Nov. 13 and continues through Dec. 7 with Julian Marks producing, director Bradford May directing and Terry Gould as production manager. Ross Clydesdale is casting and executive producer is Diana Kerew. The story is about an inner-city, night-beat cop who is trying to solve a series of murders related to ice (that’d be diamonds).

A Reasonable Woman is an mow for Lifetime and The Movie Network based on the true story of the woman who fought to change the laws regarding sexual harassment and won. Marks is producing. No cast or crew were signed at press time. Dates for production are Nov. 28 to Dec. 21.

Shooting over the same period is Double Jeopardy, an mow about a man who murders his girlfriend in a jealous rage, is tried and acquitted and therefore can’t be tried again. Sound familiar? Producer is Marks, director is Deborah Dalton, production manager is Mark Winemaker, and the coproducer with Power Pictures is Wilshire Court.

All three mows will be shot in Toronto.

Hmmm

In an interview with Playback Oct. 12 (see p. 1), Culture Minister Marilyn Mushinski was stumped when asked to name the last Canadian film she saw. A few minutes of awkward silence was followed with the confession that she had seen a film at the Toronto International Film Festival, but, alas, it was an American movie. Prompted by a communications official to think back to whether she had seen Exotica, an embarrassed Mushinski laughed and said: ‘I don’t even know what that is!’