Banff: While the pitching frenzy was only beginning to heat up, at press time, the fruits of an intense few days of deal-making at the Banff Television Festival were starting to show.

The Talent Group’s Lawrie Rotenburg, Saskatchewan production company Edge Entertainment, and l.a.-based international sales and licensing company IFM Film Associates are hammering out the details of a strategic alliance that they anticipate will produce three to four features per year in the $3-million range.

Rotenburg will package the creative and attach talent to the projects and Edge will privately finance and produce the films, says president David Doerksen.

Edge will be sending out an offering memorandum for private investment in July to raise $10 million to be funneled into production financing, acquisitions and a soundstage in Saskatoon.

The company has also opened a distribution arm which will distribute its own films and outside properties in Canada and the u.s. ifm will hold international rights on the films. In addition to distribution, ifm also packages international treaty coproductions for Canadian and u.s. producers and has been involved in three coproductions with Montreal’s Cinar Films.

The Boy Next Door, a feature being penned by Vancouver writer Alan Borden, is the first project to go through the new venture and is being negotiated at Banff.

In other Banff news, Baton has signed a development deal with Edmonton-based Great North Communications for six episodes of Dim Sum Diaries out of its Vancouver office. This past season a pilot episode titled Orange Seed Myth, directed by Deborah Day, aired on Baton. Elaine Scott is producing Dim Sum Diaries and Marty Chan is head writer.

Great North Productions announced it will be opening a Toronto development office to be headed up by coo Elaine Scott, currently situated in Edmonton.

The Alberta Filmworks tv series North of 60 is being resurrected as a two-hour cbc tv movie entitled In the Blue Ground. Written by the series’ executive story editor Andrew Wreggitt, the mow will combine the original cast of characters and the northern setting but with a twist – a crime thriller plot line.

Tina Keeper, Tracey Cook, Robert Bockstael and Peter Kelly Gaudreault will star. Production begins July 2. Alliance International will distribute.

Toronto’s Sleeping Giant Productions closed a three-year, $5-million production agreement with Vision tv and The Odyssey Channel in the u.s. to coproduce The Return of the Gods and Spiritual Biographies.

Return of the Gods is a four-hour miniseries to be coproduced with Italian company Dreamtime Productions. Sales have already been made to Rai of Italy and tsi in Switzerland.

Spiritual Biographies, a 39 one-hour series, showcases the lives of influential spiritual leaders. Unapix International is distributing outside Canada.

In one of those dream-type Banff situations, Toronto-based Norflicks Productions’ Richard Nielsen and David Wesley stood in line at the festival registration desk, met cbc’s Brian Freeman, and the chance meeting has evolved into a development deal on Norflick’s miniseries The Magnates, based on British author Susan Grossland’s novel chronicling the world of newspaper barons.

Whistling Gypsy Productions is the British production partner and Nielsen will write the screenplay.

Fever pitches

On the pitching front, Steve Westren and John Pattison created a buzz at the Market Simulation with their half-hour comedy series Puppets Who Kill, set in a halfway house for dysfunctional puppets.

Westren was barely off the stage before Comedy Network’s Ed Robinson cornered him and handed over his card. A moment later, Westren was whisked out the door by cbc’s George Anthony, who was interested in talking about a development deal. Channel 4’s Jacquie Lawrence suggested Westren pitch the broadcaster’s late-night commissioning editor. ‘This is just the type of politically incorrect shows we are after,’ Robinson said of the show.

Also on the pitching block was SDA Productions/Lifeboat’s The Stork Derby, a $3.5-million mow based on the true story of an eccentric Toronto man who left behind an equally odd will. Showtime, bbc and Lifetime requested copies of the script after the pitch, says sda’s Andre Picard. Citytv has already kicked in a $300,000 licence fee.

A French-Canadian is required for a leading role and Radio-Canada expressed interest contingent on the casting.

With Helena Bonham Carter and Sir Derek Jacobi (I, Claudius) considering lead roles in its four-hour historical miniseries Renaissance in Flames, Vancouver’s Avanti Pictures’ has turned some heads. Jacobi had planned to pitch the project with producer Leigh Badgley and project creator/cowriter Jeanne Harco, but had a conflict with another film shoot.

The drama is based on a true story set during the height of the Italian Renaissance when a monk named Savonarola seized control of Florence in the name of God and his wrath culminated in the Bonfire of the Vanities in which countless works of art went up in flames.

Rockie winners

Winnipeg’s Buffalo Gal Pictures took home a Rockie Award for the doc Gabrielle Roy in the History and Biography Programs category and picked up the $20,000 Telefilm Canada Prize for best Canadian independent French-language production in competition.

The Tale of Teeka (Galafilm/Triptych Media) scored a Rockie in the best children’s program category and the $20,000 Telefilm Canada Award for best French-language production.

The winners of the second annual Telefilm Canada/Television Northern Canada Awards are the Cree-language production Silent Tears from Shirley Cheechoo and the English-language program Journey Through Fear, produced by Dennis Jackson. Both awards include a $10,000 prize towards a future project.