In addition to everything else going on over at Toronto’s Catalyst Entertainment – the theme park in Malta and a rash of international sales – the company has signed a joint development agreement with the cbc for Tales From The Long House.

Created by Tom Jackson (North of 60) and recent Catalyst addition Kevin Gillis, the half-hour family series mixes live action, puppets and animation to spin stories inspired by Native folklore. France’s Teleimage is on board as a production partner.

Wanted: cheap cube space

‘It’s a story about a bunch of people dropped into a diabolical labyrinth of cube-like rooms, and it’s a journey to find a way out. They don’t know who sent them there or why.’

That’s what Vincenzo Natali told me when I asked him about Cube, the fifth picture from the Feature Film Project and a script Natali wrote with Andre Bijelic and Graeme Manson, with story editing help from Hugh Graham.

‘So, what was your inspiration?’ I asked, expecting something deep and dark. ‘I wanted to come up with a movie that took place on one set,’ he said. Oh, okay. Pragmatic is good.

Following in the footsteps of Colleen Murphy’s Shoemaker, Clement Virgo’s Rude, Holly Dale’s Blood & Donuts and Laurie Lynd’s House, Cube is a suspense thriller scheduled to begin production on Nov. 18. Producing are Mehra Meh (a Canadian Film Centre producer resident in 1993) and Betty Orr. Natali is directing.

On the strength of his cfc short Elevated, Natali says the u.s. Sci-Fi Channel has shown some interest in Cube. ‘My dream, like everyone else’s dream, is that some Miramax-type company would pick it up for release in the States,’ he laughs.

Two of the six main cast have been nailed down in the form of David Hewlett (Traders) and Andrew Miller (Oh, What A Night), but the thorn right now is finding space to shoot the thing. ‘It’s been a challenge finding a soundstage,’ says Natali. ‘We need a specific kind of space – we need high ceilings – but we don’t have much money.’

Including deferrals, Cube will ring in at about $700,000. Aside from the much appreciated equipment and services donated by a host of companies and groups, financial support comes from Telefilm Canada, the Ontario Film Development Corporation, fund and Viacom Canada.

Not everyone’s leaving Las Vegas

Ever been to Las Vegas? For the uninitiated, it’s hard to believe that behind the gaudy glitz of The Mirage and Caesar’s Palace is a real town. One of the fastest growing in North America, by the way. People go to supermarkets and check books out of libraries, kids go to school in the morning like everywhere else. Weird.

Writer/producer/actor Richard Gabourie (Three Card Monte) is actually pretty fond of the place, and his next project – a caper called Justin Stone – takes a look at some small-time hustlers working north of The Strip.

‘When I need to go down to l.a.,’ says Gabourie, ‘I usually rent an apartment in Las Vegas for $400 a month. It’s only a three-hour drive. Once you get away from the strip it’s really a friendly town, there’s a real small-town atmosphere.’

Budgeted in the $3.6-$4 million range, Gabourie says he hopes to start prepping the picture in April. Talks are underway with at least three directors and a range of financing and distribution entities. ‘Ideally, I’d like to have a theatrical release in Canada and, if it’s done with the right people, have it run as an mow in the States,’ says Gabourie. ‘Right now, getting a u.s. sale or presale is the most important element.’

Gabourie ran into a distribution dilemma on Buying Time, his last feature. mgm/ua wanted North American rights, but Cineplex Odeon already had Canada. ‘Since the Americans consider Canada part of their domestic market, we had to buy it back from Cineplex Odeon to get the mgm contract,’ says Gabourie.

The plan for Justin Stone is to shoot a week in a Canadian city (‘It could be Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, wherever’) followed by a five-week, Canadian-crewed shoot in Vegas. Ideally, Gabourie says he’d like to have a u.s. name in the cast, maybe a Canadian resident of l.a. He admits he wrote the title character for himself, but that’s not set in stone. ‘I’ve been away from acting for awhile,’ he says. ‘I miss it.’

Mixing business and business

It’s not like David Weaver doesn’t have enough to keep him busy at Barna-Alper Productions, or as if the Ontario Film Development Corporation’s not fast-paced enough for business co-ordinator Robert Cousins, but since they won the National Screen Institute’s Drama Prize with their short film proposal A Boy’s Own Story, they made time to make it.

Writer/director Weaver and producer Cousins are currently posting the 13-minute film – the story of a space-minded boy and the confusion caused when he overhears his parents talking about a death in the family. The four-day shoot took place at the home of Alliance legal beagle Joan Fisher, and they transformed her living room into the boy’s starry bedroom. (No word yet on whether she’s keeping it.)

Shot on 35mm, the film totals about $39,000 including deferrals and help from Cutting Edge (which provided Avid services), P.S. Production Services, deluxe toronto, Kodak, Tattersall Sound, Casablanca Sound and Thompson & Thompson Insurance.

Harald Bachmann (Curtis’s Charm) was the dop and Marian Wihak (Dido and Aeneas) handled production design.

The film, which has a presale to cbc’s Canadian Reflections, will have its world premiere at Local Heroes in Edmonton in March and the Weaver/Cousins duo are already thinking ahead to their next project, a feature. The first draft of Weaver’s Wilder Shore of Love has already been completed.

See? It does happen.

Deedee Slye’s success should buoy the spirits of disenfranchised film students everywhere. On Nov. 4, her master’s thesis from York University’s film school will air nationally on CBC Newsworld’s Rough Cuts.

‘We liked her, and we liked the film,’ says Rough Cuts’ Jerry Macintosh.

In a business mired with complications, trials and tribulations, making it happen the first time out is somewhat exotic. How’d she do it? ‘I just sent it in,’ says Slye.

Tales from the Triangle, in its original 30-minute form, was the story of the evolution of Toronto’s Junction Triangle, a neighborhood in the city’s west end bordered on three sides by railway tracks. A working-class live/work area since the early 1900s when industry moved in, it grew into a vibrant community of immigrants somewhat isolated from the rest of the city.

‘These days the artists are moving back in for the lofts and studios, and it’s become important for the film community,’ says Slye. ‘Since the late ’80s, when the area lost most of its industry and job base, the residents have organized to protect the neighborhood from polluters and developers.’

For Rough Cuts, Slye reshot some material (she originally enlisted her dad and a friend to handle sound and camera, respectively) and tried to shift the focus more towards the personalities in the neighborhood, people like local historian Frances Labelle, whose stories spawned Slye’s idea for the film in 1992.

‘Although it’s very local, Jerry (Macintosh) saw potential for a national story, one that could appeal to communities across the country.’

Slye hopes the cbc window will be ‘a jump-start for my career.’ While she doesn’t have anything else specific in development, she hopes to stay within docs and stick close to home. ‘My eyes,’ she says, ‘are really local.’