Toronto’s Arto-Pelli Motion Pictures and Gemini Film Productions out of Cologne, Germany, are in production on the psychological thriller A Sordid Affair.

The $3.2-million non-treaty coproduction is shooting Aug. 15 to Sept. 10 in and around Toronto.

Arto-Pelli producer Stavros Stavrides says Germany is ‘the most important independent film sector in the world right now. They seem to be investing and buying heavily into movies,’ he says. ‘The German market is growing internationally and making more English-language productions.’

Stuart Cooper is directing and Curtis Peterson is the dop. Editing will take place in Germany.

The cast includes American actor Bobbie Phillips in the lead role and Canadian Stephen McHattie (Emily of New Moon). German talent includes Benjamin Sadler and Thomas Heinze. Robert Wagner will make a cameo appearance.

Arto-Pelli’s last picture, Boy Meets Girl, a romantic comedy starring Joe Montegna and Kate Nelligan that screened at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, was presold to German broadcaster ProSieben.

Stavrides says Arto-Pelli is taking ‘a long-term package approach’ to movie making and is in discussions with producers in the u.k., Italy, the Netherlands and South Africa in the hopes of developing several coproductions to keep the slate full for years to come.

*Forgotten females

Women who defied the limits of social convention and overcame great obstacles, yet didn’t quite make it into the pages of history, are the subject of CineNova’s new documentary series, Women Adventurers.

Coproduced with France’s Canal+, five one hours of the show will start shooting in Toronto in October and will air on History Television in Canada as well as in Europe and Asia. Washington, d.c.-based DeVilliers and Donegan is distributing in the u.s.

The series, directed by Jane Armstrong, will start off with a look at Marguerite Harrison, an American journalist and spy in Russia who went on to produce one of the first documentaries in Hollywood’s history.

A segment on Gertrude Bell, who traveled across the desertgathering information for Lawrence of Arabia is currently being penned by Siobhan Flanagan. And the story of Alexandra David-Neel, a Buddhist scholar from France who crossed the Himalayas and became the first woman to enter the Tibetan holy city of Leas, is in the research stage.

When it came to selecting the women who would be featured, producer Christina Pochmursky says they were looking for those whose adventures had been documented in photographs and film. The docs will feature re-creations of the women’s journeys.

Pochmursky says the project has spent years in development hell, in part because there was some resistance to the topic of women’s adventures.

‘It is just beginning to hit sea level now and I think it’s going to soar,’ she says. ‘The whole idea of women’s stories and history is coming into the mainstream now, and not just for women; it is the flowering of a whole range of experiences that have been overlooked. Everyone wants to find fresh inspiration and stories, and it’s all there in women’s history.’

CineNova is about to go into production on three one-hours of Medical Mysteries, which will examine dwarfism, obesity and obsessive-compulsive disorder as they are experienced in real life.

*Europe-bound

Catalyst Entertainment has embarked on a gastronomic road trip through Italy for 26 episodes of Avventura: Journeys In Italian Cuisine, the first of many savory series.

Touted as more than a cooking show, Avventura, hosted by David Rocco, takes the audience through the different regions of Italy, stopping along the way in such places as Genoa to take in the food and antique markets, sample the Genoa basil houthouses and make pesto sauce. In La Spezia, Rocco, who is fluent in Italian, checks out the sights, milks a goat, indulges in some goat cheese, and helps a cook make La Spezia soup.

Budgeted at $1 million, the first dozen episodes were shot in the spring. The crew heads back to Italy Sept. 12 for the remaining 14 episodes. Avventura begins airing on Prime Sept. 15. It will also air on Travel Channel in the u.k. and in Central Europe, Poland and Spain. Jim McKenna is producer/director and Damir Chytil is the dop.

According to Keith Buck, executive in charge of production, an Avventura cookbook will hit the stands next year; a ‘best of’ home video will feature favorite recipes and events from the series; and a 1-800 number will be available.

While nothing has been confirmed yet, Buck says the goal is to shoot 65 episodes of the Italian journey. Next, the series may move to the spicier regions of Latin America, which would include visits to Mexico, Chile and Brazil, or explore other Mediterranean cuisine.

*Deverell sells Needles

William Deverell, creator of the cbc drama series Street Legal, has signed a us$600,000 deal with l.a.’s Seventh Pictures for the rights to his book Needles.

The story is about a talented lawyer with a big-city district attorney’s office who is assigned to prosecute a powerful drug dealer. The prosecutor is a heavy drug user and the indicted dealer his main supplier.

Needles was published in 1979, at which time it was optioned to mgm, but never made it past the development stage.

Commercial director Brad Christian, who will make his feature film directorial debut on Needles, is also writing the screenplay.

Deverell’s script for Mind Games (his first attempt at a series since Street Legal), about a sleuth with a few problems of his own, is being shopped around to u.s. and Canada prodcos.

*I Am A Rose

Producer Marike Emery and director Karen Shopsowitz are gearing up to shoot the one-hour doc I Am A Rose, the true story of a father’s unique way of handling his grief after his teenage daughter is hit by a car and killed.

The $86,000 film will air on cbc’s Rough Cuts and Vision tv. The project had its genesis when Ned Levitt, the grief-stricken father, saw A Mother’s Grief, another project from the director/producer duo that aired on Rough Cuts.

I Am A Rose is the title of a book of poems written by Stacey Levitt, the subject of the film. Following Stacey’s death, her father went to Mexico and climbed a mountain she had begun to climb but didn’t finish. While there, Ned left a metal box with Stacey’s book of poems and a pen at the bottom of the mountain so that anyone going by could include their thoughts. When Ned returned to Mexico a year later, his daughter had become a kind of folk hero and the spot where the box had been placed had become a shrine of sorts to his daughter.

‘[Stacey’s] book ended up giving her a new life and connecting strangers with each other,’ says Emery. ‘[Ned] gets messages from people all over the world. The film is about that journey and the actions to keep her alive.’

Emery is hoping to start shooting I Am A Rose in the fall in Toronto and near Mexico City. The story will be told through existing footage and through the voices of those touched by Stacey.

Emery and Shopsowitz’s first foray into fiction, Angel Light, a short about a teenage girl dealing with her deaf sister and self-absorbed mother, will premier at this year’s Montreal World Film Festival, running Aug. 27 to Sept. 6.

*In-house at TVO

TVOntario is heading into production on two new in-house series, Taking Care and Your Health.

Taking Care is about caring for elderly parents. Each of the 13 episodes will be divided into three parts – identification, support and information – and will examine how a family copes with a particular situation. Richard Ouzounian is executive producer and Indra Seja is producing.

Maureen Taylor will host 26 half-hours of Your Health, a consumer-oriented show featuring health-related news, research, facts and guests. Cathy Perry is producer and Pat Ellingson is executive producer.

Both shows will launch at the end of September.