Montreal: One of the principal drama series in front of the cameras this fall is Urgence, a 13-hour production which debuts Jan. 18 on Radio-Canada.

Produced by Claude Godbout of Productions Prisma, Urgence’s $10.4 million price tag is tops this season for a French-track drama, more or less on a par with the Productions sda crime story Omerta.

The series is from two of Quebec’s best and busiest tv writers, Rejean Tremblay and Fabienne Larouche, and according to Tremblay, captures the drama inherent in emergency medicine set against a backdrop of the moral and human toll exacted by a basically bankrupt health-care system.

Directing are Michel Poulette (nine episodes) and feature director Francois Bouvier (four episodes) who’s making his tv directorial debut. Prisma’s Joanne Forgues is the executive producer.

How real is Urgence?

‘For the moment,’ says producer Godbout, ‘the series takes place in Quebec, which is still a province, but in a context of funding cuts and deficits and their impact on doctors and services. It is intended to appeal to a wide public. We cover more territory in terms of social issues, and more time on the personal lives of the main characters than in a series like er.’

Asked about its export potential, Godbout says Urgence should have been produced two years ago. It could be a factor in dealing with entrenched competition like er and Chicago Hope, he adds.

The storyline keys on the personal and professional lives of four emergency specialists played by David La Haye, Serge Postigo, Nathalie Gascon and Marina Orsini, the talented lead in Les Filles de Caleb (Emilie).

Shooting started in August and goes for 104 days in three blocks through to mid-January, an average of eight days per episode. Episode seven is currently in front of the cameras, and Godbout says the shoot is on time and on budget.

Support cast includes Jean L’Italien, Patricia Nolin, Pierre Chagnon, Michel Dumont, Angele Coutu, Monique Spaziani, Joelle Morin (star of the new Telefiction/ TVA Network series Alys Robi), Chantal Fontaine and Sophie Lorain.

Godbout says about $750,000 has been spent on or donated for decor and medical equipment, with the principal set installed at Cite du Cinema.

Craft credits on the two-camera, 16mm shoot go to delegate producer Suzanne Dussault, pm Francois Sylvestre, dop Allen Smith, sound recordist Philippe Scultety, art directors Marc Ricard and Jules Ricard, costume designer Ginette Magny and post supervisor Joe Yared. Denis Papillon is doing the offline edit at Metaphor and the composer is Jean-Marie Benoit. AstralTech is handling lab duties and Supersuite is doing the online post and transfer.

Financing comes from Telefilm Canada ($2,514,000), the Cable Production Fund, Radio-Canada, the Quebec tax credit and sponsor General Motors, which was brought in by agency Publi-Cite. Godbout says Urgence is gm’s first association with a major drama series. The guarantor is Michael Spencer of Film Finances.

Prisma is in post on 52 episodes of The Big Garage, coproduced with the u.k.’s Winchester Entertainment and broadcast on Family Channel, Canal Famille and Global Television, and is prepping 26 new half-hours of Anna Banana, a puppet/2D animation series coproduced with gum. The company also produces the kiddies series Les Zigotos and Automag Plus. Cumulative budgets are in the $15 million range.

A Natural Enemy

A teenager’s child born out of wedlock and bounced from foster home to foster home reappears 25 years later obsessed with revenge in the Doug Jackson thriller Natural Enemy.

The $6.2 million production is the fourth feature in the past 12 months from Filmline International and producer Nicolas Clermont. A 25-day shoot starts the third week of November and wraps Dec. 15.

The first-rate ensemble cast includes Lesley Ann Warren as the mother, Donald Sutherland as her new husband, Copycat star William McNamara as the deranged foster child, and Joe Pantoliano and Tia Carrere in cameo roles. Kevin Bernhardt is the screenwriter.

Natural Enemy is Clermont’s first film with Jackson, but the two have shared projects of mutual interest going back to Jackson’s time at the National Film Board.

Craft credits go to dop Rodney Gibbons, editor Yves Langlois, production designer Csaba Kertesz, sound recordist Michel Charron, pm Manon Bougie and supervising producer Stewart Harding. Casting is by Elite Productions.

Clermont has produced three other features in Montreal over the past year – Rainbow, a $14 million Sony hdtv movie directed by Bob Hoskins; Hollow Point, a $9 million crime thriller from veteran director Sidney J. Furie; and The Algonquin Goodbye, a $14 million u.k. action film coproduction from director Russell Mulcahy.

Distributors for Natural Enemy are CFP Distribution in Canada, October Films in the u.s. and Vine International for foreign sales.

All post work on Natural Enemy is being handled in Montreal.

Karmina

they bite, they laugh

Lux Films producer Nicole Robert and director Gabriel Pelletier are shooting Karmina, a $3.17 million vampire romance comedy that the producer says is dripping with commercial potential.

Shooting started in the Montreal region Oct. 17 and goes through to Dec. 4 with additional days of blue-screen photography for the film’s cgi and f/x sequences.

Robert says the project’s originality and competitive interest on the part of distributors hungry for another box office hit with the 18-to-25 crowd were the main factors in pulling together the rather impressive budget.

A trendy vampire and special effects comedy – ‘they bite and kill, but we laugh,’ says the producer – the film opens with a young woman’s escape from Transylvania and Vlad, the man she doesn’t want to marry. Karmina finds refuge with a faraway aunt in Montreal when her conversion to the joys of human love are threatened by Vlad and the creepy crowd from the old country.

Robert says she and director Pelletier, who directed four episodes of the Telescene series Sirens, share identical visions for the film, ‘and he is technically very competent, and great with the actors.’

Yves Pelletier of Rock et Belles Oreilles fame wrote the screenplay based on an original script from producer Ann Burke. Andree Pelletier also contributed.

Leading players are screenwriter Pelletier, Isabelle Cyr in the role of Karmina, Robert Brouillette, France Castel, Gildor Roy, Ray Cloutier and Sylvie Potvin.

Craft credits go to dop Eric Cayla, art director Normand Sarrazin, makeup artist Pierre Saindon, line producer Luc Vandal and editor Gaetan Huot.

L’Intrigue is handling mechanical f/x. Groupe Image Buzz is producing the cgi.

Robert says the film embodies all manner of marketing hooks including an ‘achey-breaky dance’ sequence and original songs from Les BB lead singer Patrick Bourgeois. But, because presales are often impossible for French-track features, she says public funding is essential. Investors include Telefilm Canada ($1.5 million), SODEC-Quebec ($440,000), an advance against domestic and world rights from CFP Distribution, the Quebec tax credit ($500,000), the federal credit ($70,000), and Lux.

The film should be out for Halloween, next year.

Lepage’s Polygraphe

As Le Confessionnal continues to unspool in theaters, director Robert Lepage is busy prepping a second feature, Le Polygraphe, an adaptation of his successful stage play.

Lepage has a new set of partners for Polygraphe including In Extremis, a relatively new house set up by producer Bruno Jobin and Lepage, and French producer Philippe Carassonne, who coproduced Le Confessionnal along with Denise Robert and David Puttnam.

Christian Larouche, vp at CFP Distribution, says cfp has the Canadian rights and is considering some or all of the international rights.

Confirmed leads include Marie Brassard, who appeared in the stage play, and Patrick Goyette. A major role will go to a European actor as yet unsigned.

Larouche says cfp signed with Lepage after a meeting at the Cannes Film Festival. He says the screenplay ‘is one of the best I’ve read this year,’ and that the experience Lepage gained on his first film will make Polygraphe even better.

Like the director’s debut film, the story is told on two levels, beginning with a police interrogation of a women whose best friend is brutally murdered. Years later, the events surrounding the murder are retraced during the filming of a suspense movie based on the original crime.

Telefilm Canada has confirmed an $850,000 investment in Polygraphe, which will be shot on location in Montreal, Quebec and Berlin. Prepping started Nov. 1, and according to the stcvq, the shoot dates are Dec. 11 to Jan. 23.