Busy writer Linda Svendsen is adapting Canadian novelist Jane Urqhart’s Away for The Film Works. Production will begin in early spring ’98 on the four-hour, $10-million miniseries, scheduled to air on the cbc in spring 1999, says Film Works vp Paul Stephens. The shoot is slated for Ontario and Ireland but a director and cast have not been finalized.

Finger The English Patient for setting the trend ­ yet another award-winning novel is heading to the big screen. Film Works is gearing up for a September preproduction start on A Long Journey, based on Rohinton Mistry’s Governor General Award-winning novel about a man who gets caught up in political intrigue while trying to keep his family together in India.

Bombay is the exotic locale of the November shoot, with Sturla Gunnarsson (Mother Trucker) directing a cast to include Om Puri (City of Joy) and Ranjit Chowdry (Sam and Me). Norstar is distributing in Canada and The Sales Company has international rights on the $4-million project.

-Paragon’s Our Hero

High on the development priority list for Paragon Entertainment is a new family series, working title Our Hero.

The Toronto production company optioned the project from screenwriters John May (who has written for My Secret Identity and Nelvana’s Stickin’ Around) and Suzanne Bolch. The writers are currently working on scripts for the show, centering on a teenage girl who becomes involved in the worldwide zine community of underground newspapers.

Although a deal hasn’t been inked yet, the cbc is reportedly the front-runner for a Canadian broadcast window. A green light could see production beginning as early as this fall.

-Spring shoot for Stone Angel

Atlantis Communications and Credo Entertainment plan a spring shoot in Manitoba on the $2.5-million to $3-million two-hour tv movie version of Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel. Although Atlantis won’t confirm the information, the Canadian broadcasters are reportedly wic and TMN-The Movie Network. A green light could see production beginning as early as this fall.

Linda Svendsen, who adapted Margaret Laurence’s Gemini Award-winning The Diviners for Credo/Atlantis, is working on the script. Cast and a director have not been attached to the project as yet.

-Another CBC comedy?

CBC has put development dollars down on a comedy series pilot currently being penned by screenwriter Edgar Lyall, whose credits include eps for Ready Or Not, and Royal Canadian Air Farce director Perry Rosemond.

Set in a comedy club, the show centers on the antics of a thirtysomething club owner and his two younger assistants. The final draft script will be delivered to the cbc in August.

-Barna-Alper eyes features

Despite a licence from cbc and Alliance on board to distribute, Barna-Alper Productions just didn’t get in the crowded ctcpf lineup fast enough.

The Toronto company is exec producing the $3-million two-hour movie The Sue Rodriguez Story with New Brunswick ‘s Atlantic Mediaworks producer Bob Miller. The project has been in the works since 1995 when writer Linda Svendsen was approached by Alliance and began interviewing family and friends of Rodriguez, a woman with Lou Gehrig’s Disease who took her battle for physician-assisted suicide to the Supreme Court.

The screenplay is also based on the book Uncommon Will by Lisa Hobbs Birnie. Sheldon Larry (Family of Cops) is lined up as director.

The shoot is skedded for September in New Brunswick and cbc has slotted the show for next spring, says Barna-Alper’s David Weaver, so the production company is scurrying around for alternative financing, aiming for a late fall start.

Barna-Alper has other irons in the fire, most notably its first foray into feature filmmaking with the low-budget film Hate, A Comedy to be coproduced with Miracle Pictures and directed by Canadian Film Centre grad Andrew Ainsworth. The story centers on a skinhead who beats up an East Indian, ends up in a hospital with amnesia, and by a strange turn of events the victim and assailant end up on a road trip together to Northern Ontario.

Weaver says talks with distributors are underway, with the intent to shoot this fall. Cast hasn’t been lined up.

Another feature in the works is Raw, which Weaver describes as a ‘hard-hitting tough movie’ about the sex industry in Canada to be shot cinema verite style. Telefilm has committed development funds and Straight Up writer Karen Walton is working on the script. Weaver is currently discussing the project with directors and distributors.

Barna-Alper has also picked up a broadcast licence from cbc to exec produce Scorn, a tv movie based on the true story of Darren Hunnemann, a Vancouver man who killed his mother and grandmother to gain an inheritance. The roughly $3-million project is a copro between Mary McEwan of Toronto and b.c.’s Chris Bruyere and is set to shoot next spring in b.c. with Gunnarsson directing.

-Toronto prods in Mtl. fest

Toronto’s Chris Philpott will see his first feature The Eternal Husband screened at the upcoming Montreal World Film Festival. Quite a feat considering he’s a self-taught filmmaker who shot the film in three weeks on a $47,000 budget.

Philpott adapted the script from a Dostoyevski novella of the same name, but set the story in contemporary Toronto, focusing on an old rivalry between two male friends haunted by offenses committed against each other in the past which culminate in a violent settling of accounts.

Paul Babiak (Atom Egoyan’s Next of Kin) and Richard Hughes (Brandon Tartikoff’s Men) star.

Philpott’s producing partners are Stacey Donen (Chinese Chocolate) and Mark Caswel (line producer of The Circle Game), who also shot the film. They are now on the hunt for a distributor.

Philpott will also be packing three feature scripts in his suitcase for Montreal: The Mad Woman’s Diary, the tale of a young girl’s discovery of a diary belonging to her grandmother who died in an asylum; Strings, where a grown-up Pinocchio, down on his luck and disillusioned, searches for the blue fairy to turn him back into a puppet; and Opposites, a romantic comedy about mismatched couples.

-Book option countdown

Sanjay Burman, a 22-year-old director/producer hailing from Scarborough, has picked up a 90-day option for Richard Scrimger’s Toronto Book Award-nominated Crosstown.

If he hasn’t landed an exec producer or coproducer and some development money by Oct. 26 to produce a feature, he loses the rights.

It’s not a bad deal considering he picked up the option without putting down a red cent ­ even though the author had two producers vying to pay for the rights. (Burman’s willing to let Scrimger write the script.)

It wouldn’t surprise me if the flick makes it to the big screen, this guy has moxy!

While still in his teens he started sending birthday presents to Norman Jewison and Atlantis Films’ Seaton McLean, among others. At 16, Burman produced a segment for cbc’s Life: The Program, a year later landed a job as anchor for the ytv pilot News 101, and was taught the ropes as a co-op student at Sullivan Entertainment.

When he couldn’t put together the cash to produce the short film required to finish his first year at Sheridan College, Burman called 36 production company reps and asked for help.

Only one returned his call ­ McLean (those must have been some birthday presents), and Atlantis coproduced the short, Alleria.

Burman says Julia Rosenberg at Alliance is currently looking at his Crosstown project, the story of a former abortion surgeon who finally cracks and leaves his family to live on the streets.

Great North Management Artists is repping his option and, according to Burman, Ralph Zimmerman says a number of actors, screenwriters and directors are interested in coming on board if he can snag a development commitment.

Burman is also looking to produce author Eric Wilson’s series of mystery novels. Once again no money exchanged hands in the intent to option deal ­ apparently Wilson is a friend.

The story gets even better, Burman says Marina Sirtis (Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Councillor Troy) and her agent loved a proposal he sent them and are willing to commit to the film. Patrick Granleese, who has written kids’ scripts for Cinar Films and Atlantis, is interested in writing the script.

Describing the stories as ‘Hardy Boys meets Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express’ for six- to 15-year-olds, Burman’s seeking a coproducer or exec producer for a one-hour series pilot. Apparently he’s met with ytv’s Dale Taylor who has asked for more of the books to read.

Stay tunedŠ

-Seeking scripts

The Jordan Stone Agency, a year-old Toronto company repping Canadian scripts in l.a. and the u.k., has opened an office in London, Eng.

The literary agency is on the lookout for scripts from established and unknown writers alike. Jordan has also initiated a script critique and editing service to deal with what he says is the major complaint of American and u.k. producers when they look at Canadian scripts ­ that they lack enough development.

Stone, formerly in commercial distribution at the Canadian Film Centre, says his company has connections with 11 l.a. studios, including Ph’enix Pictures, Newline, Touchstone and mgm, as well as Channel 4 and the bbc in the u.k.

-Up Your Arts!

‘Think arts lounge, think network, think friendly.’

That’s the tag line of the monthly meet and mingle networking soiree Up Your Arts! where emerging tv, film and media types converge to talk shop, screen flicks and learn pointers from professionals. CHIN Radio host/traffic reporter Melinda Best and documentary producer Jet Ong organize the gatherings, which over the past two years have grown to include a membership list of 200.

Upcoming sessions will see entertainment accountant James Piper, Bravo! producer Paul Gerard and Jane Farrell, organizer of The 3-minute Rock Star film event, stop by to offer advice and answer questions. The organizers are seeking films for screening -­ anything from rough cuts to finished projects.

The next meet is Aug. 25 at weave art gallery and bar. Check out the Website for specifics: upyourarts @hotmail.com or jet@torfree.net

-Correction

In the last column, Goat Christmas should have been identified as a Temple Street Production.