Vancouver: The West Coast is thick with television movies, with no less than nine mows and miniseries listed on the current film list from the B.C. Film Commission.

Among them are Breaking the Surface, an mow for USA Cable, which puts the autobiography of Olympic diver Greg Louganis on the small screen. The month-long shoot starts Aug. 15 and stars Mario Lopez (Empty Nest).

Fall Into Darkness, a tv movie produced by Pacific Motion Pictures for nbc, begins Aug. 26. The project – which chronicles a young woman who takes up with a daring crowd – features Tatiana Ali (Fresh Prince of Bel Air) and Jonathan Brandis (SeaQuest dsv).

Girls Fight Back, another tv movie for nbc, stars Shanna Reed (Major Dad) in a story about a cheerleader who charges sexual harassment against the football team.

In Cold Blood, a cbs miniseries managed by pmp’s Tom Rowe, moved its production from Calgary to Vancouver for three days the first week in August. This version of Truman Capote’s classic stars Anthony Edwards, Eric Roberts and Sam Neill.

Who’s counting?

For those who are counting other long-form projects, there are seven feature films such as Disney’s Deep Rising and Warner Bros.’ Free Willy iii prepping or shooting in Vancouver, states the film list.

Not included in that tally, though, are features expected to get the green light anytime. The rumor mill says Wilshire Court will bring the feature Outrage to Vancouver, while an unnamed project by Morgan Creek and another Disney feature are expected to add to the volume of work being done under the new collective agreement forged between American and Canadian producers and the B.C. & Yukon Council of Film Unions.

Island fever

According to the press kit for The Gulf Islands Film and Television School, residents on Galiano Island have caught the film bug. Symptoms include lending prized old vehicles and offering up their private homes to the novice filmmakers attending the innovative summer camp for teenagers.

Severe cases even show up for the weekly Saturday screenings of short films: dramas, documentaries, mockumentaries, computer animation and cartoons.

The workshop – which is in its second year – runs for nine weeks to the end of August and is open to 18 kids aged 14 to 18 years per week. In teams of three, the kids dream up their film projects, write, shoot, edit and act throughout the intensive six-day program.

Instructors include Gail Noonan, an animator whose recent film Your Name in Cellulite has won festival kudos, and documentary filmmakers Velcrow Ripper and Heather Frise, who collaborated on Bones of the Forest.

The course costs about $750, including room and board, but half the students are there on full scholarship. All 50 videos will be shown at Vancouver’s Pacific Cinemateque Sept. 28, says the school’s director, George Harris.

Success story

North Vancouver-based Take Part Productions has sold 54 episodes of its storytelling series Tell-a-Tale Town to ytv. The series for children aged four to 10 will debut on the network Aug. 18.

Tell-a-Tale features original Canadian stories and was first taped in 1991 at u.tv and broadcast nationally on CanWest Global.

Handouts

British Columbia Film invested nearly $371,000 into local productions in the three months ended June 30.

John Pozer’s feature Kissed and documentaries A Place Called Chiapas, Sangoma: Traditional Healers in Modern Society, Sing Out and To Live in My House shared the kitty. An additional $84,000 went to assist development of 10 screenplays including the documentary The First Time, an educational picture about first sexual experiences written by Annelise Larson and Wendy Hyman.

B.C. gov’t cool to proposed tax credit

The future of a British Columbia Refundable Investment Tax Credit is dim, says the deputy minister of the provincial ministry of small business, tourism and culture.

‘The prospects are not positive,’ says Cassie Doyle, ‘because it is a cost to a government that is committed to protecting health and education. We’re facing a huge fiscal crisis in government.’

While she confirms she has received the proposal from the ad hoc industry-led committee struck to write the document, Doyle says there is no status to report. The proposal, officially announced July 29, will be reviewed, but Doyle cannot speculate when, or if, the proposal will make it to Treasury Board where the financial program can be approved.

‘I know the (B.C.) Film Commission is keen (on the tax credit),’ says Doyle, ‘but it has to be lined up with every other request for business subsidy.’

The proposed tax credit offers b.c. producers the lesser of 15% of a production budget or 25% of eligible labor expenditures (capped at 48% of the budget). Another 2.5% can be earned for producing or posting 50% of the project outside the Metro Vancouver area, and yet another 2.5% can be earned by hiring five apprentices.

The quick dismissal from Victoria must come as a blow to domestic filmmakers hungry for a business incentive program to help attract coproduction and stimulate indigenous work.

But Alan Morinis, chair of the committee, remains undeterred: ‘All I see is our task. The provincial government is not well aware of the b.c. industry. (The tax credit) is not a cost to government. It is proven to be revenue neutral. It is not a subsidy. One of our tasks is to educate the government.’

Morinis says the proposal will be made final on Sept. 6. Prior to that, he is looking for industry feedback and will liaise with the government.

The fall, he adds, will be a time of lobbying and government action. The legislature may not sit again until next March.