Montreal: Principal photography begins June 10 for 30 days on Whiskers, a buddy comedy from Productions La Fete producer Kevin Tierney and director Jimmy Kaufman (My Secret Identity).

Billed as a ‘Big meets Garfield’ family film, the story opens with a lonely 11-year-old boy who wishes his only friend, Whiskers the cat, could be human. One night the wish comes true, but rather than the hoped-for playmate, Whiskers is transformed into a fully grown man of 30. The new friends exchange human values and lessons in character-building and independence, and set off on a series of hilarious adventures in search of Whiskers’ lost family.

Whiskers’ crew includes line producer Suzanne Girard, who also produces her own movies, pm Katherine Baulu, ‘a real dynamo’ Tierney met through the cftpa and the Canadian Film Centre, production designer Claude Pare and dop Francois Protat. Christopher Hawthorne and Wendy Biller wrote the screenplay.

Whiskers is budgeted at $3.3 million, with presales to Showtime for u.s. tv rights and Hallmark for international. Distribution La Fete has Canadian media rights.

Tierney says the financing package is possible ‘because of La Fete’s 12-year track record with children’s movies, (which is) why Showtime came to us in the first place.’

Tierney’s also the screenwriter on Dancing on the Moon, a new La Fete feature adapted from an original story by Jacqueline Manning-Albert. Kit Hood (Degrassi) is slated to direct for La Fete topper Rock Demers. The start date is late July. Whiskers wraps July 19.

Lassie comes home (to Canada)

Cinar Films and Broadway Video have reached an agreement to bring Lassie, the world’s longest-running family series, back to television. An initial 13 half-hours will be filmed in the Montreal region this fall.

‘The production is in what we’re calling `heavy development,’ ‘ says Patricia Lavoie, vp live action, production and development. ‘We’re working on the bible. It’s classic Lassie, with adventure and romance, but it’s the ’90s.’

Lavoie is project creative supervisor. Irene Litinsky (Million Dollar Babies, Space Cases) is the delegate producer.

Not all aspects of the deal are final, but Broadway, Lorne Michaels’ company (Kids in the Hall, Saturday Night Live), apparently has an active merchandising franchise with Lassie.

Lavoie says the new Lassie’s pedigree is impeccable.

Not only have the producers inherited trainer Robert Weatherwax, son of the original 1954 tv series trainer Red Weatherwax, but the new, ever-loyal and courageous puppies are ‘genetically linked’ to the original.

Lassie was first introduced in 1938 in a short story published in the Saturday Evening Post. Lassie Come Home, a 1940s novel and bestseller, was followed by the 1943 mgm film starring Elizabeth Taylor. New York-based Broadway produced a Lassie movie for Paramount Pictures in 1994.

Lavoie reports Cinar has four live-action series on the go for ’96/97 including Wimzie’s House, 13 new episodes of Spaces Cases and 13 one-hours of Emily, a coventure with Halifax’s Salter Street Films. The Lucy Maud Montgomery adaptation will be shot down east, probably for a July startup.

Pin-Pon to the rescue

Pin-Pon is a new live-action preschool series from Telefiction. Set in a fire station, the series is a good bet with kids, and probably their moms.

Pin-Pon may be the perfect tv remedy for disintegrating late-afternoon daycare decorum when overly tired toddlers run around four walls yelling ‘pin-pon, pin-pon.’ That’s the exact sound French-speaking city kids make when they imitate fire engines or ambulances.

Sixty-five half-hours are being videotaped on a three-camera soundstage at Studio Centre Ville. The May-to-October shoot culminates with an airdate on Canal Famille in September.

Set in a small town where there are no longer any fires, the show is hosted by a big and small fireman played by Yves Soutere (Mourir d’amour) and Thomas Graton (Princesse Astronaute). Sketches, songs, and arts and crafts aim to please the three-to-five set, with guest appearances by singers Marie-Michele Desrosiers, Judi Richards, Elyse Marquis and Jean Maheux.

Michele Poirier and Paule Marier are the screenwriters. Jean Bourbonnais and Pierre Lord are directing. Original music is from Marie Bernard.

Pin-Pon is budgeted at $2.2 million, with investment from Telefilm Canada, Fonds des cablodistributeurs, Fonds Conway (Shaw), Fonds Maclean Hunter, both applicable tax credits and Canal Famille. Producers are Carmen Bourassa (Passe-Partout), who created the original concept, Jacques Bonin and Claude Veillet.

INIS starts shooting

Students at Institut national de l’image et du son, Quebec’s advanced film studies school, have momentarily escaped books, workshops and film theory to prepare seven 15-minute Betacam-style documentaries.

After five months of hard-nosed study, it’s the first production for the school’s 14 students, who range in age from 19 to 44.

inis director general Louise Spickler says professional response to the program has been encouraging, with service houses and technicians cutting back on fees.

Architect Moshe Safdie dropped by for a segment on the National Gallery of Canada, while a team doing a story on movie extras lucked in as guests of Cite-Amerique and producer Lorraine Richard on a visit to the set of the 18th century romance saga Marguerite Volant. Other subjects in the mix include a blind man and his dog, a look at a newspaper for the homeless, the work of a unit manager, and a marketing story called Hamburger Wars.

Francois Reid is delegate producer/pm on the project.

inis will accept seven screenwriter candidates, seven directors and five producers for its new term in January 1997. The application deadline is Sept. 9.

The school has an annual $1.2 million budget and a new creative director, Michel Langlois.