Just over a year ago, ex-ballerina and up-and-coming documentary filmmaker Isabella Cairess Favaro jumped on a plane to Chicago to track down ballet great Mikhail Baryshnikov.

She watched a performance of the White Oak Dance Project and afterward made her way backstage where she presented the Russian dancer with her proposal for a film marking the 25th anniversary of his defection from the Soviet Union. He declined.

Now, 13 months after their first meeting, Favaro is in the midst of producing and directing Leap of Faith: The Dance of Mikhail Baryshnikov and has become one of the few individuals granted a one-on-one interview with the 51-year-old legend.

‘At first he was very direct – he was not interested,’ says Favaro. ‘This was not the kind of thing he likes to do, anniversaries mean nothing to him. I went to the bathroom and when I came back he had changed his mind. He took my hands and said he would consider it.’

The project, which Favaro has been financing out of her own pocket, is budgeted at around $140,000. In order to complete the film, Favaro says she will probably be looking to private sources for money. As for broadcasters, no one is on board yet, but she has been talking to a few and doesn’t anticipate any problems.

The doc will consist of current dance footage given to Favaro by Baryshnikov’s company, never-before-seen archival footage from Russia, an in-depth interview with Baryshnikov conducted by Favaro in New York, and interviews with other dancers such as Clive Barnes and Canadian friends who helped Baryshnikov in his early days of freedom.

The film will also cover Baryshnikov’s week-long, mid-June visit to Toronto, where he performed with the White Oak Dance Project and picked up an honorary degree from the University of Toronto. According to Favaro, she and dop Yehoram Pirotsky were given exclusive access to the dancer during his stay in Toronto.

The doc, which started shooting in March, will look at the dancer’s defection to Toronto in 1974 and the events leading up to his decision to leave the ussr.

‘He needed artistic freedom, he had a strong desire to find more in dance and he then gave to the world through that,’ says Favaro, who adds that making this film ‘is almost more satisfying [to me] than being a dancer because I am looking at it more from what this person has contributed, and he has contributed so much.’

Favaro’s first film was a documentary about her violin teacher, Eugene Kash: Passionate Flight, which aired on cbc’s Man Alive in the fall of 1997.

‘My first film really expresses the essence of the man. You get a sense that he is a small-time teacher with a few connections to the big music world, but you see what the love of art really means, and that is what I am trying to do with this Baryshnikov film.’

* This summer at Catalyst

Catalyst Entertainment is prepping two mows, What Katy Did and Virtual Mom, both set to shoot in Toronto in July.

Produced with Miracle Productions, Virtual Mom was born out of co-executive producer/actor Sheila McCarthy’s unconventional habit of spying on her eight-year-old daughter in the school yard.

‘One day she just burst into tears and I felt heartbroken about it,’ says McCarthy. ‘I thought about a script in terms of a mother and daughter where the mom is so obsessed to the point that she wants to be with her daughter so much that she can magically transform into herself at 13 and become her daughter’s best friend.’

Miracle executive producer and owner Paul Brown (I Love A Man in Uniform, The Teacher Ate My Homework) and McCarthy have been in development on the project for the last two years. McCarthy and Brendan Howley wrote a lengthy treatment and Alyse Rosenberg (Ready or Not) penned the script. Catalyst ceo Charles Falzon is co-executive producer.

Laurie Lynd (The Fairy Who Didn’t Want to be a Fairy Anymore), who Brown worked with on his first film, rsvp, is directing the $2.5-million production, which will air on cbc. Shooting runs July 25 to Aug. 26.

The story is about Holly (McCarthy), a recently divorced mom who’s trying to start a new career as an all-night phone-in software consultant, and her young daughter Lucy.

Determined to be a supermom, Holly will do anything to protect her little girl, but at age 13, Lucy has her own ideas about what a good mother should be – and they don’t include having her show up at school.

Just when things are starting to look bleak for the two, Holly accidentally sets off a computer reaction that magically transforms her into a 13-year-old version of herself. And as she attempts to juggle the roles of best friend and mother, she learns more than she ever wanted to know about her daughter’s private life and her ex-husband’s new relationship.

A Genie Award-winning actress for her 1988 role in I’ve Heard The Mermaids Singing, McCarthy has also appeared in a range of productions. Her credits include Die Hard ii, the cbs series Picket Fences, Road To Avonlea and Emily of New Moon. Aside from playing the role of Virtual Mom, McCarthy also is learning the ropes of executive producer on the mow.

Sumela Kay (Simon Birch) will play the young Holly, Lauren Collins (I Was A Sixth Grade Alien) is Lucy, and the producers are hoping to get Maury Chakin on board.

Before Virtual Mom goes to camera, Brown will be busy on What Katy Did, a Canada/u.k. coproduction between Catalyst and Tetra Films, which he is producing for Catalyst.

Shooting July 5 to Aug. 3 in and around Toronto, What Katy Did is based on Susan M. Coolidge’s turn-of-the-century classic children’s novel and was adapted for television by Olivia Hetreed.

Katy is a bright, bold young girl who is always in trouble. But when a tragic accident redefines her existence, she must fight her way back to happiness and learn some difficult life lessons along the way. Allison Pill, who recently wrapped The Dinosaur Hunter, plays Katy.

Stacey Curtis (Traders, Road To Avonlea) is directing the $2-million tv movie and Alan Horrox, head of Tetra, is coproducing with Brown. Derek Rogers (Cube, New Waterford Girls) is the dop. Catalyst executive vp Kevin Gillis is executive producing with Falzon.

Catalyst Distribution has Canadian and foreign rights except for the u.s., which is being handled by Gullane Pictures.

What Katy Did will air on itv in the u.k.

Down the road, Catalyst and France’s TeleImages Production (in association with Run With Us Productions) will begin production on 26 half-hours of Tales From The Longhouse in the new year.

The children’s series combines live action with puppets in a cgi environment and will air on cbc, tvontario and tvnc. The show is budgeted at $300,000 per episode.

Tales From The Longhouse, which Gillis, co-executive producer and cocreator of the show, describes as a quirky sitcom for kids, has its roots in Native folklore and is about a community of animals and their unpredictable spirit guide played by Tom Jackson, co-creator of the show.

Jim Corson and cocreator Larry Mirkin are producing and TeleImages’ Philippe Alessandri is co-exec producer.

* Gross is back

The Alliance Atlantis’ mow Judas Kiss is shooting around town from June 21 to July 21.

Paul Gross (Due South) stars as former rcmp officer Patrick Kelly who is convicted of killing his wife.

The script was penned by Robert Forsyth and R.B. Carney based on the Michael Harris novel The Judas Kiss. Alex Chapple (Traders) is directing and Robin Miller is behind the lens. Gross, Forsyth, Carney and Anne Marie La Traverse are executive producing and Frank Siracusa is producing.

Judas Kiss will air on ctv in the fall.

* Nadda’s feature debut

over the past two years, Toronto writer/filmmaker Ruba Nadda has completed 12 short films that have screened at festivals around the world and now she is making her first feature, I Always Come To You.

The film – scripted by Nadda, who is also directing, producing, lensing and editing, as well as financing out of her own pocket – is about a girl who spends three days searching for her lost sister.

The shoot, taking place on location in Toronto, got underway in April and Nadda is hoping to have it wrapped by February and see it unspool at TIFF 2000.

Nadda recently picked up a best director award at the Arab Screen International Film Festival in London and her short Do Nothing won for best international short at the International Short Film Festival of Santiago last year.

A retrospective of her work will show at the Bloor Cinema June 29 and will include the shorts Laila, Slut, Damascus Nights and The Wind Blows Towards Me Particularly.