Vancouver: Producer John Curtis is back in the saddle again as president of Prophecy Pictures and Prophecy Entertainment and has just wrapped the first feature since his days with defunct Everest Entertainment.

Crack in the Mirror is a thriller (akin to Seven) about an atheistic cop on the trail of a religious serial killer. Production ran Jan. 4-23 with Andrew McCarthy and Michael Ironside in the leads.

And starting Feb. 15, Prophecy Pictures will produce The Silencer, a thriller about an undercover cop tracking an assassin.

Presales to Canada (Lions Gate Films), Germany and Italy have helped finance the $1.7-million features.

Then the company switches genres: from cop thriller to family-oriented fare.

Open Ice is scheduled to go in April as a story about a young black hockey player who makes it into the nhl. In July, Sorcerers – a modern-day Merlin story – is set for production.

Curtis – who began his career at North American Pictures before moving on to ill-fated Everest – heads a team that includes Evan Tylor (who produced For a Few Lousy Dollars and Stag) and cfo Petros Tsaparas. Melanie Kilgour, late of TSC Film Distribution, manages the company’s distribution arm Prophecy Entertainment.

The company is currently securing a reverse takeover of a Vancouver Stock Exchange shell company and should be trading by the end of February, says Curtis.

*Cadence goes with three

Not to be outdone, Cadence Entertainment (Tail Lights Fade, Hard Core Logo) of North Vancouver has three pictures on its production slate this calendar year.

Going in June, Shiney’s Head is about an Oxford-educated Australian Aborigine trying to repatriate from Dublin a head of one of his ancestors.

Arousal, based on the Barbara Gowdy story 93 Million Miles Away is a coproduction with Toronto’s Back Alley Films, and will go before Vancouver cameras in the fall. Following Gowdy’s themes of sexual adventure, the film tells the story of a woman who develops a taste for exhibitionism.

Also in the fall is production of Bleeding – produced by Christine Haebler and written by Angus Fraser (who cowrote Kissed) – about a man who is transformed into an angry and violent racist by a stabbing incident.

*A film is a film

And then there are the myriad smaller-still producers who are thrilled to make one film.

Among those is A Girl is a Girl – the directorial debut of Reginald Harkema, who as an editor is a staple for Canadian indie films with credits such as Last Night, Hard Core Logo, Twilight of the Ice Nymphs and Tail Lights Fade.

Harkema is cowriter with Angus Fraser. Christina Margellos (Femme Films Productions) is producer and Christine Haebler is executive producer.

Girl is about a bewildered young man trying to find true love in the modern age of commerce and illusion.

Production begins Valentine’s Day and wraps March 15. Shavick Entertainment is distributing.

*Out first

Better than Chocolate (Rave Film) will debut at the 49th International Berlin Film Festival Feb. 10-21. A lesbian romantic comedy, the film is directed by Anne Wheeler and stars Wendy Crewson (Air Force One), Karen Dwyer (also in Bruce McCullough’s Superstar), Christina Cox (f/x), Ann-Marie MacDonald (I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing) and Peter Outerbridge (Kissed).

The film is written by Peg Thompson and produced by Sharon McGowan, who collaborated previously on The Lotus Eaters.

*Doc talk

Halfmoon Bay-based Raincoast Storylines is behind production of the cbc Life & Times documentary The Poet and the Bandit, Jan. 25. The one-hour is based on the lives of b.c. poet Susan Musgrove and her husband Stephen Reid, who was a member of the Stopwatch Gang of bank thieves and one of the fbi’s most wanted before completing his prison term.

Reid’s feature-length script Jack Rabbit Parole is being developed by Pacific Motion Pictures. The doc is directed and narrated by Jerry Thompson and produced by Bette Thompson and Terrence McKeown.

Meanwhile, Jericho: Walls of Silence – a February segment on cbc’s Witness – is an investigation of Vancouver’s notorious Jericho Hill School for the Deaf, the subject of scandal when students exposed the horrors of years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse.

The documentary is directed by Glynis Whiting (The Sterlization of Lelani Muir), produced by Agnes Wilson and written by Helen Slinger.

*On the tube

* new on the air Jan. 1 is At Home with Herbs, a 13-part information series. Produced by Martin and Colleen Corley of Corley-Graham Communications in Victoria, the series is an overview of ‘herbs in daily life’ including cultivation, medicinal uses and cooking. The series was produced ‘on spec’ and Knowledge Network (Fridays at 7 p.m.; Saturdays at 5 p.m.) is the first broadcaster to pick it up.

* busy variety producers PS Films is, for the third year, producing the 1999 Variety Club Show of Hearts telethon Feb. 13 and 14 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver. The 22-hour event raises money for kids living with mental and physical challenges.

ps is currently producing 13 new segments for B.C. Legends, a documentary called Sara’s Story: What do I do When I Look like Uncle Fester?, fishing-for-women series Reel Adventures and the Jim Byrnes Show.

* Forefront Entertainment is producing for CBC British Columbia the eight-part comedy series The 11th Hour, a parody of entertainment/ lifestyle news magazines.

The series is written by improvisational actors and Vancouver Theatre Sports League alumni Ian Boothby and Roger Fredericks. Neil Grahn (from Edmonton’s The Trolls), Nancy Robertson (Comics!) and Randy Schooley (The Addams Family) provide supporting talent. Mark Lawrence directs and Mickey Rogers is executive producer.

*Kudos

The Geometry of Beware – an experimental short by Rick Raxlen and Victoria-based No-Room Productions – was been selected best of Portland’s Northwest Film Festival, a event specializing in short films. The seven-minute film – featuring a jazzy soundtrack by Victoria musicians Karl Roessingh and Ken Williams (who together did the music for In the Company of Men) – uses a piece of silent Mutt & Jeff animation from 1926 as its base.