Montreal: Based on the popular British children’s book series by Jill Murphy, The Adventures of the Worst Witch is one of the more promising Canada/u.k. coproductions of the new season. Arnie Gelbart of Galafilm and two u.k. partners, htv (United) and indie producer Global Arts, are producing 13 half-hour episodes on Digital Betacam on a budget of $6.5 million.

The show is a comedy-drama about a 12-year-old girl sent to study at the Cackle Academy. Unfortunately, she’s inept as a witch, can’t fly a broom to save her life, can’t go through walls, and can’t even cast a spell.

Two episodes are being taped in Montreal later this month. Canadian content includes lead Clare Coulter, director Stefan Plescynski (La Courte Echelle), who’s helming five episodes, screenwriter and the series’ script editor Don Ariolo, and editors Helene Girard and Myriam Poirier. ytv, tfo (the French version is called Amandine Malabul) and Radio-Canada are the Canadian broadcasters.

‘This is like the lead series for itv [in the u.k.] next season,’ says Gelbart. ‘It has very high production values and lots of special effects.’

Telefilm Canada is keen on the property and thinks it should sell quite nicely, says Quebec operations director Joelle Levie.

Gelbart says he’d liked to see more high-impact British-style miniseries commissioned in Canada. ‘Look at what’s happening in the States,’ he says. ‘Most of the networks have magazine programs on every night in primetime. When television is done well it can have an incredible impact. It’s the kind of thing the cbc should be doing to be different from everybody else.’

Gelbart (Lilies, L’Histoire de l’Oie/The Tale of Teeka) sees the policy push for more Canadian content as strictly bad news.

‘We need some balance here because this is really idiotic. It’s the wrong way to do more Canadian. It’ll just ghettoize it and prove the skeptics right because the programs will become provincial and boring. Canadians won’t want to watch them and then the private broadcasters will say, `You see. Why should we invest in Canadian programming if nobody watches?’ ‘

Next up for Galafilm is the Arto Paragamian (Because Why, Cosmos) feature Two Thousand And None. It’s set for a 35-day shoot starting Oct. 15, with funding from Telefilm, sodec, Behaviour Distribution and a presale (a third of the budget) to a major French distributor.

The film is budgeted at $4.5 million and is a comedy about a scientist who discovers he may die in six weeks. Gelbart says he’s close to signing a big-name international star.

Pierre Brousseau, vp at Behaviour, was first in on the Paragamian film. ‘He’s been extremely gracious in helping to make the film because he had to give up some rights for us to get the European money,’ says Gelbart.

Galafilm has three upcoming docs for cbc’s Witness.

Josh Freed (At Your Service) is directing two of the entries including A Coat of Many Countries, a modern Silk Road tale of how and where apparel is manufactured.

The Viking Saga, a two-hour coprod with svt (Swedish Television) is near completion. It’s licensed by Discovery and Canal d and Gelbart says the show is being prepped for Nova (wgbh, Boston), which prebought the u.s. rights.

Galafilm Multimedia has received funding to create interactive Websites and cd versions for After Darwin and Brian McKenna’s The War of 1812. ‘Most of our documentary production will have a multimedia extension including cd-roms, dvd and interactive Websites,’ says the producer.

– All in the family

Filming is underway on Alain Chartrand’s Chartrand et Simonne, a six-hour biographical miniseries produced by Robert Menard of Productions Videofilm. Radio-Canada is the broadcaster.

The production traces four decades of labor and human rights battles waged by trade unionist Michel Chartrand and his wife, the late and much-admired Simonne Monet. Director Alain Chartrand and the shoot’s sound recordist Dominique Chartrand are the sons of the famous couple.

Two of Quebec’s current top leads, Luc Picard (Nazareth usa) and Genevieve Rioux, play the younger Chartrand and Simonne. Muriel Dutil, Raymond Boucher, Gabriel Gascon and Francoise Gratton are also featured.

Serge Bureau is the shoot’s art director and Michel Caron is the cinematographer.

Chartrand et Simonne wraps Nov. 10 and is crewed by the stcvq.

Menard’s Polish immigrant love saga Le Pollock is slated to air on src in the new season.

– Four Days

Toronto commercial director Curtis Wehrfritz’s feature debut, Four Days, is Cite-Amerique’s first venture into English-language features. The $3.3-million film shoots from Sept. 1 to Oct. 5 in Montreal and La Mauricie and is a coproduction between Lorraine Richard (Les Filles de Caleb, Le Coeur de poing) and Toronto producer Greg Dummett (The Boys Club, Jacob Two-Two).

The story, based on Montreal author John Buell’s novel, is about an intricate bank heist gone wrong, the ensuing double-cross and a missing bag of loot. The screenplay is by Pinckney Benedict.

Leads include Kevin Zegers (Air Bud), Colm Meaney (Con Air) and William Forsythe (The Rock), Lolita Davidovich (Blaze) as Crystal who befriends Zegers’ kid-on-the-run character, Anne-Marie Cadieux (Le Coeur de poing) and Patrick Goyette (Le Polygraphe).

Craft contributors include dop Miroslaw Baszak, production designer Kenny Baird, wardrobe designer Michele Hamel and editor Gaetan Huot (The Red Violin). Former bank robber/author Stephen Reid is a consultant on the shoot.

Behaviour Distribution has Canadian rights. Behaviour Worldwide has international. A spring ’99 release is anticipated.

– A tale of two cities

Seemingly immune to the country’s dreary but aggravating constitutional battles, filmmakers and producers in Montreal and Toronto are learning to buddy up and better share limited creative and financial resources. It’s a healthy development for the industry and helps make the world seem just a little bigger.

Last year it was Tim Southam directing the Banff Television Festival winner The Tale of Teeka/L’Histoire de l’Oie for producers Arnie Gelbart and Anna Stratton, and Francois Girard directing The Red Violin for Toronto’s Rhombus Media and producer Niv Fichman.

This year, it’s Toronto’s Greg Dummett Productions coproducing with Cite-Amerique on the Curtis Wehrfritz feature Four Days (see above); Devine Entertainment and Cinemaginaire sharing production on Devine’s latest mow collection, The Artists Specials, currently filming here, and finally, producer Bernie Zukerman, who’s back in la belle province partnering with director John N. Smith and exec producers Micheline Charest and Ron Weinberg on the new four-hour cbc miniseries Revenge of the Land.

A Cinar Films/Four Square Productions coproduction, Revenge of the Land is a western epic set on the Prairies at the turn of the century and is based on Maggie Siggins’ ’92 Govenor General Award-winning book.

Zukerman and Cinar earlier combined on two big-budget dramatic miniseries, Million Dollar Babies and The Sleep Room. Production on Revenge opened in Saskatchewan Aug. 17 and restarts in Quebec Sept. 10 through to early November.