Montreal: Reaching for top talent, Taurus 7 Film Corp. producer Claudio Castravelli has optioned the film rights to the Paul Theroux novel Chicago Loop and signed British director Nicolas R’eg (The Man Who Fell to Earth) to direct the picture.

The film will be budgeted at $8 million and shot over 35 days in Montreal this fall with an additional week in Chicago.

A majority Canada/u.k. coproduction, Chicago Loop is described as a psychological fantasy about a highly misogynous man who has to deal with an ironic twist of fate when he becomes a woman.

u.s. rights are still in negotiation, with Miramax and Alive Entertainment among others in the bidding. Conquistador, which recently merged with Kushner-Locke, holds the foreign rights.

Taurus 7 is currently shooting the $10 million supernatural thriller The Minion, director Jean-Marc Piche’s feature debut. ‘We’re all extremely impressed. He’s pulled it off like a pro,’ says Castravelli.

The film stars Montreal regular Dolph Lundgren as a warrior priest and Quebec actors Roch Lafortune and Francoise Robertson (Jasmine) in the role of the archaeologist who uncovers some devilish remains.

The 30-day shoot wraps July 10, with cgi produced by Sundog. Barry Parrell is the dop and Violette Daneau is the art director. Conquistador has foreign, except u.s., rights on The Minion. CFP Distribution has domestic rights.

‘It is very hard to presell a film in the u.s. unless it has a big budget with major stars,’ says Castravelli. ‘The direct-to-video category has gone way down in the last few years.’

Shooting started June 25 and g’es for six weeks on yet another Taurus 7 feature, the $8 million sci-fi sequel The Arrival ii. Roger Corman alumni Kevin Tenney (Witchboard, Night of the Demons) is directing a cast made up of Patrick Muldoon (Melrose Place), Michael Sarrazin and Jane Sibbett (Friends). Carole Mondello is the pm, Bruno Philip is the shoot’s dop.

Production financing for Taurus 7 projects is shared by Royal Bank, Banque Paribus, the Lewis Horwitz Organization and Kredit Bank of Luxembourg. With five films produced in the past 18 months, Castravelli says he has a good shot at two additional made-for-tv movies later in the year.

-Bertrand returns to Radio-Canada

Point de Mire and producer Andre Monette have wrapped taping on the five-hour Janette Bertrand (Avec Un Grand A, Parler pour parler) scripted miniseries Le Piege, the first installment in a collection of Bertrand miniseries called Jamais sans amour.

The production was taped in Quebec City and Montreal and marks a return to Radio-Canada for the much respected writer (Quelle famille, Moi et l’autre). Bertrand, a kind of mother confessor personality for the Quebec tv audience, left Radio-Quebec along with Monette more than a year ago when the educational pubcaster dropped its drama slate.

Le Piege tells the story of a decent, Dr. Welby sort of md, played by Marcel Sabourin, who’s forced to examine his professional ethics when he is seduced by a younger married patient played by Marie Charlebois.

Monette says Le Piege (The Trap) was shot film style, with dop Daniel Villeneuve using ground-based lighting techniques.

Bertrand’s next miniseries installment, L’Obsession, is being prepped for October and November.

Louis Choquette directed Le Piege, which was shot for $1.2 million with funding from Point de Mire, Radio-Canada, Telefilm Canada and the ctcpf.

-The Rocket Project

‘Roy Dupuis as Rocket Richard, Maurice Richard in person, a hockey game in wartime Montreal a few months before VJ-Day, recreating one of the sport’s immortal moments. Need we say more?’

That pitch to the press from Essential Information executive producer Robert Guy Scully was the start of two days of filming earlier this month on the latest Heritage Minute, the 60th in a series launched by the CRB Foundation.

The Maurice Richard Minute is set in December 1944 as the young Richard family is moving. While Richard has a bad shoulder injury and is stuck hauling furniture, the phone rings and he’s obliged to head off to the rink. That very night, Dec. 27, one of the most compelling sports legends is born as the Canadiens beat Detroit nine to one, with The Rocket all ablaze scoring five goals and assisting on three others.

Francois Labonte directed the two-day 35mm shoot. Monique Huberdeau was supervising producer, Pierre Duceppe was the pm, Jean Becotte art directed and Bernard Couture was the dop.

Bell Mobilite is the sponsor of The Maurice Richard Minute, which will be broadcast on networks across the country and screened in some 700 Cineplex Odeon theaters.

Scully says nine new Minutes will be showcased this fall on cbc and Radio-Canada including historical shorts on Expo ’67, the invention and discovery of maple syrup by Native people, baseball legend Jackie Robinson, the Avro Arrow starring Dan Aykroyd, and the anniversary of the U.N. Rights Charter. The English-language spots are produced by The Partners’ Film Company in Toronto.

With a slight hint of irony and possibly historical revenge, Scully will introduce the Arrow Minute from a Lear jet factory in Kansas, a former u.s. operation now owned by Canada’s Bombardier.

Scully’s company is also producing a four-hour docudrama on the life and times of The Rocket with Labonte directing. The drama portion will be filmed next year with a premiere on Radio-Canada in the fall of 1998.

Meanwhile, the incredibly busy globetrotting host of cbc’s Venture is returning with a full season of interviews for Scully Rencontre, seen on r-c, Scully rdi on Reseau de l’Information and The World Show, sometimes seen on Newsworld and likely set for syndication to u.s. public television stations in ’98. Venture is also returning in a new slot, Tuesday at 8:30 p.m., in a public affairs sked that includes Wendy Mesley and Undercurrents, Marketplace and the fifth estate.

-Better at home says Wintonick

When one (of the many) Channel 4 commissioning editors at the Banff Television Festival said, ‘We don’t want anything conventional,’ Necessary Illusions producer Peter Wintonick says he almost considered exchanging his passport and renewing Commonwealth ties. The thought was only fleeting, because Wintonick says he’s finally made a breakthrough of sorts here at home with Quebec funding agency sodec, which has invested in the house’s latest documentary, The Quebec-Canada Complex.

Wintonick says sodec has become rather efficient, with project applications ‘in and out within a month.’

The Quebec-Canada Complex is budgeted at $150,000 and is being codirected by Patricia Tassinari. It’s a humorous one-hour (but absolutely non-current affairs) take on the country’s not so great psychological condition. Other funding sources include Rough Cuts on Newsworld, Radio-Canada and all-news channel Reseau de l’Information.

Necessary Illusions projects in post include Ottawa director Frank Cole’s 75-minute doc Life Without Death, ‘an unusual travelogue in that he walked across 5,000 kilometers of the Sahara Desert, alone with a camera,’ and a one-hour Wintonick-directed doc called Storytelling. The latter features interviews with oral and traditionalist storytellers shot in India, Japan, Ireland and Northern Canada. Wintonick also exec produced Daniel Cross’ feature doc The Street, a 75-minute film tracing events in the lives of three homeless people shot over six long years.

Wintonick, who travels a great deal, says European broadcasters including the Scandinavians, the British and France’s Canal+ are active buyers of docs, although apparently Canal+ is backing off more socially driven material for ‘fuzzier’ topics.

One-time experimental filmmaker Francis Miquet is a partner in Necessary Illusions.