Montreal: Shooting is underway on Cosmos, an innovative 29-day New Wave feature project from six young directors and Max Films producer Roger Frappier.

In Cosmos, the stories unfold over a full day in the life of the film’s pivotal character, Cosmos, a cab driver with a penchant for classical philosophy. Frappier says the film is completely scripted and is more a collection of cohesive short stories than a series of sketches. The production is budgeted at a remarkable $960,000 and is being shot in 35mm black-and-white film, ‘just like in the old days of New Wave Cinema,’ says the producer.

The formal screenwriting and group atelier began in November under the direction of Frappier and script editor/novelist Yvon Rivard.

In filmmaker Manon Briand’s existential story ‘Boost,’ a young man meets his destiny, while director Andre Turpin’s (Zigrail) ‘Jules et Fanny’ is an ironic portrait of two individuals who meet after a long absence. In ‘l’Individu,’ Marie-Julie Dallaire tells a contemporary tale of disturbed personality, while Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Le Technetium’ is a dark trip into the world of media excess and hysteria. ‘Aurore et Crepuscule’ is Jennifer Alleyn’s intimate story of essence and truth, and director Arto Paragamian unspools a wild and imaginative tale spun over a coffee table in Cosmos et Agriculture.

Cast includes Genie Award-winning actor David La Haye, Audrey Benoit, Marie-Helene Montpetit, Pascal Contamine, France Castel, Alexis Martin, Marie-France Lambert, Sarah-Jeanne Salvy, Gabriel Gascon, Sebastien Joanette and Elise Guilbault.

Craft credits go to dop Andre Turpin, art director Pierre Allard (Eldorado), pm Sylvie de Grandpre and editor Richard Comeau.

Funding sources include Telefilm Canada and sodec’s Jeunes Createurs program.

Frappier is developing La Comtesse de Baton Rouge, the next Marc-Andre Forcier feature slated to shoot in Montreal, and La Louisiane, which goes before the cameras in September.

Malofilm Distribution will distribute Cosmos in Canada. Malofilm International has world rights. Shooting wraps May 5.

Point de Mire slate

Productions Point de Mire has developed another ambitious slate for ’96/97 including two primetime teleromans, two Janette Bertrand telefilms, a talk show series, and a profile of freestyle world ski champion Yves Laroche, reports executive producer Huguette Marcotte.

The house started taping this month on 26 new episodes of the third season of Les Machos, the one-hour teleroman from writer/producer Lise Payette. The series dramatizes the clash between professional, boomer-aged men and women and drew audiences in the 1.7 million range last season on the TVA Network. Rejean Chayer is director/co-ordinator and Claude Colbert is directing.

The company is currently developing a new Sylvie Payette (Chambres en Ville) teleroman called La Part des anges. The 26 one-hour series is being developed with Radio-Canada and is scheduled to air in the fall of ’97.

Marcotte says this teleroman will have a post-produced special f/x feel, which makes sense when you’re told the story is set in heaven and in an earthly inn run by the disputatious children of the inn’s rich (and deceased) former owner.

Bertrand, Quebec’s favorite moral educator/pop psychologist, has penned two topical telefilms for ’96, 100% Pure Laine, a story about reactionary sensibilities, intolerance and racism, and Abus pouvoir, a dramatization of patient abuse by health professionals. Bertrand will also host her weekly talk show series, Janette tout court, broadcast on Radio-Quebec (Tele-Quebec).

The Laroche life portrait is being written by Quebec City novelist/screenwriter Paul Ohl (Highlander 3) and follows the champ’s career through to his terrible Delta plane accident and recovery. Broadcast interest is from Pathe Television and Television Quatre Saisons.

Point de Mire’s six-hour international documentary series, Women: A True Story, will air on ctv this fall. The host is Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon.

Ces Enfants d’ailleurs

Shooting began in Poland March 25 on Ces Enfants d’ailleurs, a major 10-hour coproduction drama series from Montreal’s Productions Modus TV/Neofilms. The series airs in winter ’97 on the TVA Network.

Based on Arlette Cousture’s best-selling novel (400,000 copies sold in Quebec and France) of the same name, Ces Enfants d’ailleurs follows the tragic and heroic destiny of three young Poles who immigrate to Canada during wwii. Jean Beaudin (Les Filles de Caleb, Shehaweh) is the director. The screenplay is from veteran film/tv writer Claude Fournier (Bonheur d’occasion).

Leading players include Marie Tifo, Raymond Cloutier, Patrick Goyette, Michele-Barbara Pelletier and Dany Gilmore.

The Poland leg wraps April 29. The shoot continues in the Montreal region from May to August. Producers are Jacques Blain and Anne-Marie Hetu of Modus and Philippe Dussault and Christian Gagne of Neofilms.

Investors include Telefilm Canada, Fonds Maclean Hunter and Patrimoine Canada.

Malofilm International is the exporter.

An American affair

Principal photography is slated to start May 25 for four weeks, plus a week of second unit, in Montreal on Adytum International Movies’ first feature film, An American Affair.

Producer Arshad Shah, best known as the man from production service company Shalites, is producing the $4 million suspense thriller, with brother Sebastian Shah directing. Before moving to Montreal, Sebastian directed docs and dramas with the u.k.’s Channel Four.

‘The story is about a test of friendship between two beautiful, young women who fall for the same guy, an aspiring district attorney,’ says Arshad, who cowrote the sceenplay with Judd Laurence. The film has an impressive talent lineup – Corbin Bernsen (L.A. Law) and Jayne Heitmeyer (Sirens), with cameo appearances by D. Wallace Stone, mom in e.t., Robert Vaughan and the great Tom G. Waits.

Lots of talent behind the camera, too: cinematographer Peter Benison, pm Guy Trinque, former Montreal film commissioner, and costume designer Janet Cambell.

About one-third of the financing comes from presales, the balance from provincial and federal tax credit programs and private investors. TSC Film Distribution of Vancouver has the Canadian rights.

‘We like the fact we’re making movies that have an audience. We’re not getting agency money anyway,’ says the producer.

He says Adytum has a terrific feature project slated for the fall, Ziggy’s Going to Get It, based on an original screenplay from Miami/Montreal-based novelist Dany Laferriere (Comment faire l’amour).