Vancouver: More than 300 people were turned away from the front door of the Ridge theater the night that necrophilia film Kissed screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival Oct. 4. The homemade movie, which caused a stir and a bidding war at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, attracted a packed crowd including the producers’ parents who provided the pivotal funding.

In attendance were coproducer, cowriter and director Lynne Stopkewich, exec producer John Pozer and star Molly Parker, whose character gets turned on by the young dead. Also crammed into the theater was The X-Files star David Duchovny, who while not involved in the film is believed to have a fascination with all things weird.

The festival has been talking up other hits including Alan Taylor’s Palookaville, Peter Friedman and Jean Francois Brunet’s Death By Design (a fascinating biological essay that explores the cellular world) and Sergei Bodrov’s Prisoner of the Mountains.

On the celebrity watch, Japanese superstar Kitano Takeshi – the director of Kids Return – took a turn on the links with Vancouver producer Terry McEvoy and producer George Gund iii at the ubc golf course.

Big pictures wrap

Crews of Free Willy iii will be glad to be finished the long commute from Vancouver to Pitt Lake, where a floating barge played office central.

Principal photography on the Orca movie finished Oct. 10 after a three-and-a-half-month shoot. The cast includes Jason James Richter and August Schellenberg.

The shoot, meanwhile, went ‘swimmingly,’ says Tom Crowe, manager of community affairs at the B.C. Film Commission, and typifies the kind of work from the successful summer production period.

On other sets, the second unit of squid movie Deep Rising shoots until Oct. 25, while the main shooting was wrapped Oct. 18 after a four-month tour. The Disney feature was a demanding shoot, says Crowe, typical of a big-money, high-tech, underwater movie

Action feature Firestorm, featuring Howie Long, also went well, says Crowe.

It wraps Nov. 8.

With two features (and soon a third) wrapping at the same time, one might expect a flood of people looking for work. But not so, says Crowe. ‘It won’t put a big dent in the market,’ he explains, adding that people will take vacation time or move on to mows or bump juniors and permitees from the episodic television shoots.

Crowe says he expects preproduction offices to open in November for features expected to go into production in December or January.

Calendar 1996, meanwhile, has been a banner year, he says. Crowe expects production to be up by at least 20% over last year. He attributes the growth to the labor pact and an increase in commercial production.

Able Walker

Local actor Matthew Walker, who is getting his share of exposure in films such as Free Willy iii and the British film Intimate Relations, stars in Henry’s Cafe. The 20-minute drama – which went before cameras Oct. 13 – is a story of an elderly man who whiles away his days in a greasy spoon that bears his name.

Circumstance leads him to hide inside the cafe overnight where a chance encounter fulfills a dream and lends his life some meaning.

Vancouver writer/director team Geoff Denham and Ted Bortolin won the WIC Western International Communications award in the National Screen Institute’s 1996 Drama Prize. As a winner, Henry’s Cafe will have its world premiere at the Local Heroes International Screen Festival in Edmonton in March.

Director Anne Wheeler will act as mentor to the creative team.

Pick a name, any name

Runaway Girl or She’s Leaving Home are the working titles for an nbc movie of the week going before cameras Oct. 16. Production carries on through Nov. 6. The mow stars Morgan Fairchild and Toronto actress Shandra West in a story about a girl who runs away from home to become a stripper in a high-end men’s club. Airdate is sometime in the spring.

Pacific Motion Pictures is producing the tv movie Angel of Pennsylvania Avenue for Family Channel. The Depression era story revolves around children who travel to President Hoover’s home at Christmas to get him to free their father who has been jailed after getting into a brawl while looking for work. No cast has been announced, but the airdate is Dec. 15. Production takes place between Oct. 21 and Nov. 9.

Honorary Vancouverite Lindsay Wagner makes one of her frequent returns to Lotus Land to shoot Second Chance with Perry King. Shot for abc, the mow depicts the romance that blooms again after a couple are reunited by their child who was given up for adoption.

Robert and William Vince are producing the feature Air Bud, which is set to go into production between Oct. 29 and Dec. 1. The children’s film – which features Toronto actor Kevin Zegers (Life with Mikey) – is about a boy who wants to learn how to play basketball and the dog who teaches him.

The canine star, Buddy, actually shoots baskets, says project spokesperson Audrey Skalbania.

Next ish

B.C. Scene will not be available next issue but will return with gusto on Nov. 18.