Cinema Esperanca principal Andre Bennett is expanding his focus on Canadian feature film production with seven projects shooting in 1999, worth over $11 million in production budgets.

Bennett is executive producing the films and Toronto-based Esperanca holds Canadian and international distribution rights on the projects.

Life As Cinema: The Making of Phorpa, is a $400,000 feature documentary currently shooting in India. The film is produced by Leonard Terhoch of Vancouver-based Leaping Lizards Productions and directed by Linda Tokarchyuk.

Another b.c. production, Echo Lake, is a $600,000 film, written and to be directed by Richard Story. Echo Lake is set in the Queen Charlotte Islands off the b.c. coast where two brothers, raised by different guardians, meet. Bennett is executive producing, with Monique Indra and Sandra Edmunds as coproducers.

Set for New Brunswick is The Rust Kings, an ensemble piece about a group of hockey buddies who get laid off from the factory where they all work. John McFetridge is the director and Cinefile’s Barry Cameron is producing. The budget is $850,000.

Between the Lines, a $1.5-million Canada/u.k. coproduction, will go to camera this June in Greece. London Film Productions’ Morgan Mason is the British producer. The director is Fivi Fildissi, a Canadian of Greek heritage. The script is described as a contemporary Greek tragedy. Bennett is still finalizing with a Canadian coproducer.

Another project on tap is Cold Sweat from Halifax screenwriter and director Doug Pope. Raven Films in Halifax is producing the $800,000 film, which shoots in August. Cold Sweat centers on a fugitive who flees to the u.s. and is torn between two wives – one adored and the other abandoned.

A coproduction with Zimbabwe production company Mukuvisi Films, Circus is a tale of a group of traveling circus performers trying to flee from South Africa into Western Europe. Directing the $1.9-million project is Zimbabwe director Christopher Aylwards. Principal photography begins June 1.

The $5-million mystery/thriller Out of Eden is a coproduction between Bennett and Deane Judson and French producers Bernard De Lattre and Jean Claude Patrice. Gaetan Polo Martin, a French-Canadian living abroad, is the screenwriter on this tale of a French-Canadian who travels to Australia and finds himself mixed up in the Sydney underworld.

’99 release slate

Esperanca releases between eight and 10 features per year in the Canadian market, says Bennett.

The 1999 slate includes John Doyle’s Extraordinary Visitor, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and opened Feb. 5 in six cities on eight prints. Bennett says this is the widest opening release ever for a Newfoundland feature film. Another Canadian feature opening this year is Mary Jane Gomes’ Angel In A Cage.

The company has also acquired several German, Spanish and French films for release in 1999 and plans to add several more Canadian films to the slate. Its film library consists of over 54 international titles.

Esperanca is a joint venture between Bennett and Maria Pimentel, who holds a 49% stake in the company.

Word on the street has it the company is planning a major restructuring to secure the financial capital required to expand the company and/or a potential buyout of Pimentel’s share of Esperanca. Bennett will say only that discussion of specifics is ‘premature.’