Without a production credit to her name and situated on Prince Edward Island where an indigenous film industry is only beginning to crystallize, undaunted Gretha Rose set out in January to birth her own production company as well as the local industry.

A tall order, but just six months after opening the doors of SeaHorse Films with partner Larry LeClair she’s serving up a $5-million feature, Born Lucky. The coproduction with Halifax’s Topsail Entertainment will be shot next summer and is based on the true story of a young boy and a p. e. i. Gold Cup-winning race horse.

Rose says making the leap into production only made sense after two years repping Canadian and American writers and producers through her management company Canadian Screen Alliance, where she picked up crucial contacts and deal-making skills and honed a keen sense of what gives a project market appeal.

Partnerships

Rose’s long-term strategy is to develop coproduction ties with world partners and drive her films onto the world stage. But the first step, she says, is to partner up with major Canadian producers with strong international ties such as Toronto-based Paragon, which owns HandMade Films in the u.k., so SeaHorse properties can piggyback on their reputation into the world arena.

And although her first feature is an island story, the savvy new producer says scripts that whet international appetites, not local tales, are top priority. ‘Any story that’s too location based won’t have much success, so I look for scripts based on the human condition.’

SeaHorse is also developing a $10-million romantic feature comedy called Friends, and is currently in negotiations with potential coproducers. With the help of Enterprise PEI funding, Rose plans to shoot half of each project in the province to help foster an indigenous crew.

Newfoundland, another province where the film industry is just beginning to blossom, is slated for an international coproduction between local producer Ken Pittman and Norway’s Motlys Productions. Titled Misery Harbour, the shoot is set for next April. Pittman also has a feature romance in the works, Making Love in St. Pierre.

With Imagex’s latest feature film Writer’s Block still in post, Halifax producer Chris Zimmer has two new projects forthcoming. Teaming up again with his u.k. partner on Love and Death on Long Island, Skyline Films, Zimmer will go into production in January on Partition, a romantic love story set against the 1947 India/Pakistan split. Vic Sarin will direct, but cast, distributor and budget have yet to be tied down.

A winter/spring shoot is slated for The Divine Ryans, a film based on a book by Wayne Johnston that tells tales about sex, politics and hockey in Newfoundland. Zimmer is still negotiating with potential coproducers but confirms that the $4-million project will be shot in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

VideoPost

Post-production facility VideoPost is also scoping new opportunities on the feature front. The Halifax company, which has been in business since 1989 serving the Canadian and international commercial and television industry, recently moved into a new facility, upgraded its gear and will cut its first feature this summer.

The new digs offer an Avid 8000, Media 100 and Beta Suite, realtime 3D effects, Adobe Photoshop and After Effects, on- and offline editing, tie lines and ethernet connections to a recording studio and animation house located in the same facility, as well as a dat cd and extensive music and sound fx library.

nsi exec director Jan Miller toured the Atlantic region and says the program addresses the major concerns of producers: lack of access to the resources and expertise available in the major production centers like Toronto.

Direct funding is not a part of this program. ‘We don’t want to create agency babies,’ she says. ‘The program will assist filmmakers to look for new creative ways to finance their films.’ In fact, says Miller, when offered the choice filmmakers in the Atlantic provinces chose professional development over direct cash.