The city is in the midst of an exceedingly busy fall film schedule with new Quebec and u.s. features and international and domestic tv series in production, or soon slated to begin principal photography.

Independent film and tv production in ’99 is likely to top last year’s record $700 million when the city also recorded close to $200 million in location production, essentially u.s. studio and independent features.

Filming begins in mid-September on the new Denis Villeneuve feature Maelstrom. The Max Films contemporary drama follows closely on the wrap of the $3.5 million feature comedy La Vie Apres l’Amour, directed by Gabriel Pelletier and produced by Roger Frappier and Luc Vandal (see also story p. 1). Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm will distribute both.

Telescene Film Group and mtv in the u.s. start shooting Sept. 13 on the series pilot Live Through This. The plan is to go to 26 episodes. Producers are Robin Spry and Kathy Wolf.

Director Rodney Gibbons and producer Kim Berlin start filming Aug. 30 on the Blackwatch Communications tv movie Artificial Lies, while Joeff Murphy’s Gabriel’s Run, a u.s. feature from producers David Rosemont and Steven Felder, films Sept. 8-Oct. 17.

Allegro Film (Motion Intl.) is filming in Montreal through to mid-September on the tv movie Quadroon Ball with Toronto-based director Kari Skogland at the helm.

Current shoots from Muse Productions include The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a $4 million tv movie presold to Odyssey Network in the u.s. and ctv in Canada, directed by Pierre Gang and produced by Danielle Rohrbach; and The Tracker, an $8 million feature from producers Michael Prupas, Pierre Laberge and Don Carmody, with Jeff Schecter directing. Franchise Pictures has u.s. rights.

Filmline International and producer Nicolas Clermont starts filming at the end of the month on The Art of War, a $30 million action/espionage feature starring Wesley Snipes and directed by Christian Duguay (Joan of Arc). The dop is Pierre Gill. Anne Pritchard is the designer.

Filming wraps at the end of the month on the Cinar Corp./Zukerman Productions coproduction Heart: The Marilyn Bell Story, a tv movie. cbc will broadcast. Manon Briand is directing and Irene Litinsky is the pm.

(Film production in Quebec is crewed by the stcvq and includes only film-originated drama, tv and movies, and does not include the many original Quebec drama, teleroman, children’s or sitcom series originated on video, series such as Verseau International’s historical drama L’Ombre de L’Epervier or the popular Sovimage fashion-based drama series, Diva. Nor does the stcvq typically service film-originated Quebec documentaries.)

U.S. studio action

Big-budget studio action in Montreal this year includes The Whole Nine Yards, a dark mob comedy with Bruce Willis. The film shot here through to mid-July with Jonathan Lynn (My Cousin Vinny) directing. Franchise Films and Morgan Creek are the producers.

The sci-fi thriller Battlefield Earth (Warner Bros.) films in Montreal and region (Saguenay-Lac St-Jean) from July 5-Sept. 7. Roger Christian is directing. Exec producers are John Travolta, Elie Samaha, Jonathan Krane, Don Carmody and Andrew Stevens. Montreal crew (both stcvq and dgc) includes pm Jackie Lavoie and art directors Oana Bogdan, Claude Pare and Andre Chamberland.

The new Eddie Murphy sci-fi picture Pluto Nash began set construction (the surface of the moon) mid-July at the brand new Mels Cite du Cinema/Technoparc studio. It’s slated to begin filming shortly.

AAC, La Fete shoot Nuremberg

Alec Baldwin top-lines in the big-budget four-hour Turner Network Television miniseries, Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial, a coproduction between Toronto’s Alliance Atlantis Communications and Montreal’s Productions La Fete. Yves Simoneau (Free Money) is directing. Simoneau earlier shot the tnt movie 36 Hours to Die, produced by Motion International. Craft credits on Nuremberg go to Guy Lalande, production designer, La Fete’s Suzanne Girard, Mychele Boudrias and aac’s Ian McDougall, producers. Jon Cornick, Gerry Abrams and Peter Sussman are exec producers.

Girard produced the $18 million a&e miniseries P.T. Barnum shot on location here through to January, 1999. Nuremberg wraps the last week of August.

ABC and CBS dramas

Earlier this year Montreal played host to the three-hour abc miniseries Audrey Hepburn (producer Kay Hoffman/exec producer Robert Greenwald). Steve Robman directed the US$7 million shoot which stars Jennifer Love Hewitt as the legendary Hepburn.

Julie Andrews and James Garner wrapped the made-for-cbs romance A Winter Visitor (Films Balzac/Green-Epstein) in early ’99. Roger Young directed alongside the dgc’s Gilles Legare, pm, production designer Anne Pritchard and art director Pierre Perrault.

Other stcvq film shoots wrapped here this summer include Satan’s School for Girls, a Chris Leitch feature produced for Spelling Television and Canadian Intl. Studios producer Murray Shostak The Unconcerned, a $5 million Motion International (Coscient) tv movie produced for hbo. Toronto’s Bruce Pittman directed. John Meighen was the production designer.

New Paragamian movie

The new Arto Paragamian feature Two Thousand and None from Galafilm producer Arnie Gelbart filmed here through to mid-June. It stars John Turturro and will be distributed internationally by the u.k.’s Pandora which put up a third of the $4.8 million budget, and by Behaviour Distribution in Canada. John L’Ecuyer’s Saint-Jude, a Quebec/Ontario coproduction between Lux Films and East Side Film Co. also filmed on location in Montreal this summer. Cast includes Nicholas Campbell, star of DaVinci’s Inquest, and writer/director Don McKellar.

More ’99 film highlights:

stcvq highlight film action in ’99 includes the Leslie Nielsen comedy, 2001: A Space Travesty, producer Danny Rossner, director Allan Goldstein; the Alain Desrochers feature debut, La Bouteille, produced by Yul Films’ Francois M. Pouliot and Christian Larouche (Films Lions Gate), and the Quebec box-office hit sequel C’t’a ton tour Laura Cadieux, directed by Denise Filiatreault and produced by Denise Robert and Daniel Louis of Cinemaginaire International. It’s slated to wrap Aug. 24.

* The second leg of the new Fabienne Larouche tv crime drama Fortier, produced by Aetios Productions, films from late August to October.

* The Motion (sda) street drama Tag directed by Pierre Houle and produced by Francine Forest and Andre Picard wrapped recently. Motion (SDA Panorama) is also filming its first imax production, Symbol of the North.

New from Denys Arcand

the new Denys Arcand feature 15 Moments, produced by Denise Robert of Cinemaginaire and Robert Lantos of Toronto’s Serendipity Point Films filmed in Montreal and internationally this summer. This year, Robert also coproduced the big-budget historical drama La Veuve de St-Pierre.

* The Productions Sogestalt’s tv movie adaptation of Michel Tremblay’s Albertine en Cinq Temps; the sixth season of Cinar’s Are You Afraid of the Dark?, produced in association with Nickelodeon in the u.s. and ytv in Canada; and the new Charles Biname feature La Beaute de Pandora starring Pascal Montpetit, and produced by Cite-Amerique producer Lorraine Richard.

* The Melenny Productions family drama Believe from director Robert Tinnell and producer Richard Goudreau. Goudreau is the producer of the all-time boffo Quebec box office hits, Les Boys I and II.

Blackheart: a film by Erik Canuel

In early ’99, Telescene wrapped filming on two Fox Family sitcoms, Big Wolf on Campus and Misguided Angels, and the Showtime/TMN – The Movie Network/Superchannel erotic- horror anthology The Hunger, presented by Tony and Ridley Scott and hosted by pop star David Bowie. The company also shot the US$4 million Action Adventure Network pilot Matthew Blackheart this fall in Quebec, with Erik Canuel directing.

* French producer Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) with an assist from friends at Allegro shot the Leeloo Prods. feature The Dancer; and Blackwatch Productions shot the Doug Jackson tv movie thriller Dead Silent.

* Shooting wrapped this spring after six months on the 22-hour visual-effects laden (hd) adventure The Secret World of Jules Verne, exec produced by l.a.-based writer Gavin Scott, Filmline’s Nicolas Clermont and Talisman Crest of the u.k. and Neil Dunn. Now based in Montreal, Dunn and Ice Storm Group are prepping on new international drama series.

David Bailey’s movie debut

* GFT Kingsborough and producer Pieter Kroonenburg shot the $7.6 million suspense The Intruder on location in Montreal this year, the first feature from renowned catwalk/rock photography legend David Bailey. Cast includes Charlotte Gainsbourg, Nastassja Kinski and John Hanna.

* Cinar Corp. also shot the tv pilot Kids Discover the World, and coproduced the four-hour Prairie drama Revenge of the Land, produced by Bernard Zukerman and director John N. Smith; while Sylvain Guy and Cinequest Films producer Shimon Dotan shot the English-track remake of the suspense drama The List. l.a.’s Moonstone Entertainment has international rights

* Producer Lyse Lafontaine of newly-launched Lyla Films shot the Robert Favreau feature drama Les Muses Orphelines, and Aska Film Production shot the feature film Le Petit Ciel.

* Films Vision 4 shot Pin Pon, le film, a family feature based on the top-rated Quebec children’s tv series.

* Emergence International and producer Louise Gendron shot the second leg of the $20 million Radio-Canada drama series Reseaux. Patrick Huard and Dorothee Berryman star.

Pre-productions/

projects

Film projects in pre-production according to the stcvq include L’Instant fatal from producers Serge Noll and Celine Baril with Baril directing for a late September start; the Balivernia Films feature Hochelaga, Louise Sabourin producing and Michel Jete directing; and Mechant Party, a Productions Jeux d’Ombres feature from producer Anne-Marie Gelinas and director Mario Chabot. It’s slated to start filming Sept. 20.

Taurus 7 Film Corp. producers Claudio Castravelli and Jean-Guy Despres are prepping on the Michel Wachniuc feature Lockdown for an early October start. Castravelli is also prepping on a new Peter Svatek shoot, Foreign Bodies.

Other features on the horizon include the Leonard Cohen novel adaptation, The Favorite Game, from Cine Qua Non Films producer Michel Ouellette and director Bernar Hebert, and The Furnace, a Canada/u.k. coproduction feature from director Renny Bartlett and producers Martin Paul-Hus of Amerique Film, Adventure Pictures in the u.k. and Germany’s TIME. Film action slated for later this fall includes a new English-track feature coproduction with Ontario from director/writer Robert Lepage and In Extremis Images producer Bruno Jobin.