Montreal: Feature film producer Roger Frappier has made the move to television drama with the launch of a new subsidiary, Max Films Television.

The company intends to anchor its initial tv movie and miniseries projects with Quebec broadcast licence fees as well as develop export markets via coproduction or presale financing. Other sorts of coventures will follow, says Frappier.

Pierre Laberge, a line producer on Leolo and on series such as Lance et compte, will develop and produce.

Frappier says the tv slate will reflect the quality established on the feature film side. ‘There are so many new funds for tv, so a lot of the projects can be done for the small screen.’

The initial projects for television include Une Voix en Or, a four-hour miniseries in development with Radio-Canada about a talented female singer who sets out from a small village in France to conquer the world. Ginette Reno (Leolo) is slated to play the singer’s mentor. The coproducer is France’s Le Bureau.

Another miniseries in development is Lucille Teasdale, which has a ‘firm offer from rai in Italy for a presale.’

Teasdale’s inspiring story is the saga of a beautiful young woman who became Quebec’s first female surgeon and ultimately devoted her life’s work to the building and financing of a medical clinic in war-ravaged Uganda. Teasdale died in August after contracting aids during an operation.

Screenwriters on Une Voix are Michelle Allen (Lobby) and Laurence Vager, with Michel Bouchard (The Intrepids, Nowhere in Texas) and Lise Lemay (Le Matou) assigned to Lucille Teasdale.

Budgets are in the $1 million per hour and more range and both are slated to be shot in 1997.

Max Films tv is also a minority coproducer on Bob Million, a Le Bureau comedy mow presold to Radio-Canada and France 2.

Frappier has been active in Los Angeles in the recent past and says he’ll return to develop tv movie properties once Andre Forcier’s new feature film, La Comtesse de Baton-Rouge, is completed.

Max Films’ feature slate for ’96 includes Cosmos, a day-in-the-life montage from six younger directors slated for commercial release by Malofilm Distribution Nov. 8; Pierre Gang’s Le sous-sol, screened at Cannes ’96; and La Comtesse. Combined budgets are in the order of $6 million.

Frappier is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has two Oscar nominations for Jesus de Montreal and Le Declin de l’Empire Americain to his credit.