Montreal: Green Lion Productions is in editing on the one-hour documentary profile The History of Psychiatry and Dr. Heinz Lehmann, ‘the guy who proved there was a biological source to mental illness,’ according to producer Catherine Mullins.

More than a straight-up biography, Mullins says the production includes ‘cinema verite’ footage of the disturbing state of affairs at Douglas Hospital in Montreal where Lehmann worked for 60 years and sequences taped at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, md, a leading international center for research into mental illness and brain disorders.

Lehmann was the first doctor in North America to prescribe Largactil, the first anti-psychotic drug. ‘He was driven to help these people [despite the fact] people had told him `Forget it, there’s nothing you can do for the mentally ill but just blow the whistle and get them to stand up twice a day,’ ‘ says the producer. Eventually, Lehmann’s papers were published and transformed psychiatry, according to Mullins.

Lehmann died in April at age 87, just before funding for the film came through.

‘He was a wonderful person to have met,’ says Mullins, whose footage of the doctor includes two extensive interviews, his induction into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in October, and instructing medical students at the Douglas Hospital.

Shooting in 16:9 wide-screen Digital Betacam on the $350,000 production went from April to June, with Tom Puchniak (Women: A True Story, Barbed Wire and Mandolins) directing and David de Volpi (Company of Strangers, The First Winter) the dop. Torben Schioler is editing over three months at Supersuite.

Filmoption International has international sales. Magic Lantern in Toronto is the non-theatrical/educational distributor.

Mullins received important grant money because there is no eip or lfp component at this point, although talks are ongoing at Telefilm Canada. The project received $100,000 from Rogers’ Core Fund, an exclusive grant program allocated to only two English- and one French-language productions per year.

Funding also comes from Discovery Canada, the Government of Canada’s Millennium Fund, the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, sodec, Rogers Documentary Fund and the tax credits.

Green Lion projects in development include After the Famine, a doc on the wider Canadian experience of Irish immigration with the participation of former National Film Board director Robert Fortier and u.s. senator Tom Hayden, and a new cinema verite revisiting of mental illness, its impact on communities and possible solutions.

Green Lion produced Gwynne Dyer’s memorable four-hour doc series The Human Race: A Species at the Crossroads and Alec MacLeod’s The City Below the Hill, based on the David Fennario play Gargoyles.

* Guy revisits The List

Principal photography in and around Montreal is in full swing through to the end of the month on the 25-day feature film shoot The List. The film is an English-language remake of the successful French-track thriller La Liste Noire. Sylvain Guy, screenwriter on the Jean-Marc Vallee film, is directing The List for Cinequest Films producer Shimon Dotan.

In this somewhat darker version, also written by Guy, a high-class hooker stages her own arrest for the purposes of blackmailing her well-heeled clients – lawyers, judges and the state governor. At the trial, the presiding judge is faced with a potentially deadly moral dilemma – either ignore media pressure to release the infamous list of johns, or hand it over to the cops and incriminate many of his distinguished colleagues and friends.

The List stars Ryan O’Neal (Barry Lyndon, The Driver) as the judge, Richard Miller, Ben Gazzara (The Big Lebowski, The Spanish Prisoner, Summer of Sam) as a d.a., Romano Orzari (Omerta), Donald Pilon and talented u.s. actress Madchen Amick (Fallen Angels, Twin Peaks, the movie and series).

Dotan (You Can Thank Me Later, The Smile of the Lamb, Sworn Enemies) says he’s especially impressed with Guy’s acquired understanding of film and decided the 36-year-old writer/director had the right stuff after screening his award-winning short film fantasy Zie 37 Stagen. The short won the Golden Sheaf Award of Excellence for best of the show at the ’97 Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival.

Nepaya Anbar and GPA Films’ Marcel Giroux are coproducing with Dotan.

Craft credits on the $5-million shoot go to dop Yves Belanger (The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne), art director Frederic Page and associate producer Erica Stern.

Presale financing comes from Moonstone Entertainment of l.a. on international and Motion International, which has Canada.

* Thinking Quebec City?

There’s a growing consensus here the industry should try to make better use of filming locations in Quebec City, especially historic Vieux Quebec. A case in point, the beautifully photographed Margeurite Volant drama series, which went to great pains to recreate Old Quebec in somewhat already overheated Old Montreal, all because of per diems and other costs associated with trucking up to Quebec City.

Location filming in Old Montreal is widespread and can involve difficult and sometimes costly negotiations with both residents and merchants along with the meddlesome business of fines for wayward and pushy film crews.

City of Montreal film commissioner Andre Lafond says he is studying a new ‘routine’ to remedy the situation. He says this might include the use of tax credits as a means of developing a broader infrastructure and incentives for clients ‘so producers from Montreal or anywhere in the world who would go there would not be penalized by having to pay a per diem.’

The 10-year-old Bureau du Film – Region Quebec (bfq@clic.net) is working hard to raise its profile and is actively targeting local tv networks as well as foreign producers.

As for Lafond, he’s prepping on several fronts – an l.a. mission in mid-September for Montreal Mayor Pierre Bourque, the city’s participation in the Montreal World Film Festival, Aug. 27 to Sept. 6, and what he calls ‘a secret, special two-year pilot project’ designed to attract new foreign clients. Expect some news within a couple of weeks, he says.

The commissioner says while it’s still early – considering the looming actra strike and the unpredictability of location shoots – Montreal appears to be on track to repeat its 1998 performance when the city hosted just under $700 million in indie film and tv production.

* U.S. location action

With set construction – a replica of the moon’s surface – slated to begin any day at the new Cite du Cinema (Technoparc) soundstage, the start for sci-fi movie Pluto Nash has been pushed back a couple of weeks to late August/early September. The film is about the owner of a nightclub on the moon circa 2087, who stands up to a ruthless thug who wants to colonize the place. It stars Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Lopez.

Bergman Productions and Castle Rock Entertainment are producing for distrib Warner Bros. The shoot is a return engagement for producers Louis A. Stroller, Michael Bergman and Martin Bergman, with Ron Underwood directing.

Another u.s. motion picture rumored to be headed this way is The Art of War, a $30-million Warner Bros. production from Illusion Entertainment Group, Franchise Films and Amen Ra Films.

It’s the story of a falsely charged secret agent forced to track down the real killer of a world political leader.

Oliver Stone, Tony Ganz, Victor McGauley, Elie Samaha, Wesley Snipes, Dan Halsted, Andrew Stevens and Dick Wolf are the producers. Snipes stars, with Montreal-based Christian Duguay (Joan of Arc, The Assignment) slated to direct.

Franchise and Flying Heart Films are in town for the Bruce Willis mob comedy The Whole Nine Yards. It’s budgeted at $40 million, with Jonathan Lynn (My Counsin Vinnie) directing and Warner Bros. distributing. Amanda Peet, Natasha Henstridge, Matthew Perry and Rosanna Arquette also star. It wraps mid-July.

John Travolta, Elie Samaha, Jonathan Krane, Don Carmody and Andrew Stevens are the exec producers on yet another Franchise/Krane production filming here, the Warner Bros. post-apocalypse futuristic thriller Battlefield Earth. A former mgm/Fox 2000 project based on the L. Ron Hubbard novel, filming goes from July 5 to Sept. 17. Roger Christian is directing, Jacky Lavoie is the pm, Patrick Tatopoulos is the production designer and Claude Pare is the supervising art director. The crew is stcvq.