Montreal: Jean-Claude Labrecque’s latest documentary chronicles the little known story of an eccentric and very rich French family of chocolate makers who built a utopian settlement on remote Anticosti Island at the end of the 19th century.

Epoque des Menier a Anticosti is a one-hour docudrama, with extensive archival elements, shot on Super 16mm Fuji film throughout the month of June on location on Anticosti and in studio in Montreal. The $500,000 film is a coproduction between Jacques Bonin, Micheline Loiselle and Claude Veillet of Telefiction and producer Eric Michel of the National Film Board.

Labrecque uses the character of Georges Martin-Zede, played by French actor Jean-Luc Bideau, to tell the story of Henri Menier and family who purchase Anticosti Island from British merchants circa 1895, and then bring in some 200 to 300 scientists, pioneers and explorers from France to build their ‘New Babylon.’ The settlement lasted almost 30 years, basically coming to an end with the death of the original settlers.

Gilles Pelletier plays Pere Menier. Gabriel Gascon, Pierre Chagnon, Sophie Faucher and David Francis as Lord Strathcona are also featured.

Prix Albert-Tessier winner Labrecque developed the difficult-to-finance project over five years and is the shoot’s screenwriter and cinematographer. The editor is Dominique Fortin.

Labrecque says he’s had ready access to extensive archival material from Fonds Archives Menier (at Musee d’Orsay in Paris), the National Archives in Ottawa and Archives Nationale du Quebec.

Funding comes from the Canadian Television Fund, Telefilm Canada’s Equity Investment Program, sodec, the nfb, Tele-Quebec and the tax credits. SEPAQ Anticosti provided additional services.

Telefiction is again busy this season, shooting Ghyslaine Cote’s Pin Pon, le film, budgeted at $1.8 million; 65 new half-hours of the Tele-Quebec preschool series Cornemuse; and a new one-hour Nicole Giguere documentary, Barbie: La Venus de Vinyle, also commissioned by Tele-Quebec.

* Industry honors Pierre Perrault

The industry has had some important things to say about National Film Board documentary filmmaker Pierre Perrault, who died late last month, after a long illness, at the age of 72.

Perrault is best known for his vivid portrayal of the working people of Quebec, Acadia and the First Nations. Throughout his filmmaking and writing career, he was closely associated with themes such as rural authenticity and the struggles of minorities. In the ’60s, he worked with filmmakers such as Michel Brault to develop a cinema verite documentary style revealed in his fascinating trilogy on the ‘river people’ of remote Ile-aux-Coudres – Pour la suite du monde (1962), Le Regne du jour (1966) and Les Voitures d’eau (1968).

In the 1970s, Perrault’s work examined the rugged land and people of the Abitibi region of western Quebec, a story of colonization and disinheritance, as well as the harsh living conditions of the Montagnais people in Le Pays de la Terre sans Arbres (Le Mouchouanipi), completed in 1980.

Perrault made three more films during the period, La bete lumineuse (1982), Les voiles bas en travers (1983) and La grand Allure (1985), before traveling to the Far North to shoot Cornouailles, an intimate and critically acclaimed documentation of the musk ox.

Perrault didn’t receive the kind of attention reserved for trendy theatrical directors, but his achievements were widely recognized. He won the Governor-General’s Award twice, in 1964 and 1975, and in 1995 was the recipient of the Prix Albert-Tessier, the highest honor granted by the Quebec government in filmmaking.

Filmmaker/writer Jacques Godbout makes the point Perrault’s work is appreciated on an international scale.

In a statement, the Association des Realisateurs et Realisatrices du Quebec says Perrault’s legacy should inspire filmmakers and those responsible for cultural policies to make sure there’s always a place for the kind of life-affirming documentary championed by the late filmmaker.

* Goldmann’s ticket home

Ace music video director Steven Goldmann isn’t exactly fed up directing us$100,000 music videos, or walking away with all the top industry awards, but the Nashville-based Montreal native says it’s time to come home.

The word on Goldmann – who has a reputation for being generous with the talent, partly based on his extensive work with recording artist Shania Twain – is that a serious Goldmann was in town earlier this month to shoot a video for Mercury recording artist Shane Minor and talk special effects with friends at Tube Images.

He’ll be in Calgary this week to shoot a Stampede special with prodco White Iron for The Nashville Network and cbc, and is completing filming on a half-hour dramatic short called 50 Odd $, spun off the new Fred Eaglesmith album, with great mob character actor Leo Rossi (Analyze This, Casino) in a starring role.

Goldmann is talking to screenwriter Les Boeham (Dante’s Peak) about a drama called One More Try, while Rossi recently introduced him to er exec producer Jonathan Caplan.

Chris Zarpas – an exec producer with Scott Free (The Hunger) who’s apparently setting up his own shop – and Goldmann are developing a low-budget film called The Rassler, a character study about a Kentucky kid who wants to make it big in pro wrestling. 50 Odd $ was cowritten with longtime friend Jacob Potashnik (15 Moments).

Goldmann and Potashnik have also been musing about a feature called The Weatherman, a political thriller set in the summer of 1967. Potashnik is currently adapting the Leonard Cohen novel Beautiful Losers for director Bernar Hebert and Cine Non Qua Films producer Michel Ouellette.

On Minor’s crossover country video, Ordinary Love, conceptually a ‘design-a-mate mix of Frankenstein and Weird Science,’ Goldmann’s company The Collective asked animation and visual effects house Tube to create a 3D ‘virtual dream girl’ who could interact, sing and dance with the artist. Remember, it’s country town, so she’s soon gone, a swirling array of atomized binary bits.

Tube exec producer Roddy McManus says ‘an innovative camera tracking technology’ gave Goldmann the freedom to shoot without the normal constraints of locked cameras, motion-control rigs and extended tracking sessions in post-production. McManus calls the approach ‘cinematic’ 3D animation.

The creative team at Tube included founder Dany Bergeron, effects supervisor David McCall and studio director Pierre Couture. Yves Belanger was the shoot’s dop.

Tube’s recent assignments include producing more than 260 visual effects for the Canada/u.k. series The Worst Witch (United Productions and Global Arts of the u.k. and Galafilm, Montreal) and a series of digital and optically produced ‘mind-altering illusions’ experienced by John Turturro’s character in the new Arto Paragamian movie Two Thousand and None.

* New film starts

New production as reported by the stcvq freelance film technicians union includes the Filmline International feature The Art of War; a new Allan Goldstein feature, 2001: A Space Travesty; and Heart: The Marilyn Bell Story, a tv drama coproduction from 32-Mile Productions (coproducers, Toronto’s Bernard Zukerman and Montreal’s Cinar Corporation), with Manon Briand (2 Secondes) directing.

The Art of War stars Wesley Snipes, with Christain Duguay directing. Anne Pritchard is production designer and Pierre Gill is dop. Principal photography starts Aug. 23.

Space Travesty shoots from July 19 to Sept. 8, with Danny Rossner producing and Luc Campeau as line producer. The dop is Sylvain Brault, Csaba Kertesz is production designer and Violette Daneau is the art director.

Irene Litinsky is line producer/ pm on The Marilyn Bell Story, with Pierre Letarte on board as dop and Jean-Baptiste Tard as production designer. It shoots from July 26 to Aug. 27.

Other film starts this month include Alain Desrochers’ feature debut La Bouteille from producer Francois M. Pouliot of Yul Films and Christain Larouche, distribution head at Films Lions Gate. Yves Belanger is the dop and Dominique Desrochers is art director. Filming is slated to go July 19 to Aug. 20.

Gabriel Pelletier is directing the new Max Films feature La Vie Apres l’Amour, shooting July 12 to Aug. 20. Roger Frappier is the producer; Luc Vandal and pm Nicole Hilareguy are supervising producers. Department heads include art director Serge Bureau and dop Eric Cayla.

Director/writer Denise Filiatreault returns with C’t’a Ton Tour Laura Cadieux ii, a feature sequel from producers Denise Robert and Daniel Louis of Cinemaginaire International. Daniel Jobin is the dop on Laura Cadieux ii, Raymond Dupuis is the art director and filming runs for six weeks starting July 12.

It’s been an incredibly busy spring/summer for Robert, coproducer on the big-budget historical drama La Veuve de St-Pierre as well as the new Denys Arcand movie 15 Moments.

And Roger Christian’s sci-fi epic Battlefield: Earth from exec producers John Travolta (certainly no less motivated by his new project than his current box office success The General’s Daughter), Elie Samaha, the seemingly ubiquitous Jonathan Krane and Don Carmody, and Andrew Stevens, is filming on location in and around Montreal from July 5 to Sept. 17.