A few years back when Whoopi Goldberg was in Toronto shooting Norman Jewison’s Bogus, she wandered into The Book Cellar looking for a good read. Upon the store clerk’s recommendation, she picked up Timothy Findley’s lyrical tale The Piano Man’s Daughter.

She read it, fell in love with it and, like any faithful Hollywood tycoon, she bought the movie rights to it.

However, instead of producing it herself or bringing it home for some high-finance finagling, she decided it would only be appropriate for the film to be made with a Canadian partner, on Canadian soil.

So, she approached Sullivan Entertainment’s Kevin Sullivan, who agreed to write the adaptation and ultimately produce, direct and co-exec produce the now $6-million feature film with Goldberg and Sullivan partner Trudy Grant.

Set in southern Ontario between the years 1889 and 1939, The Piano Man’s Daughter, starring Oscar nominee Stockard Channing (Six Degrees of Separation), Christian Campbell (Trick) and Wendy Crewson (Better Than Chocolate), spans three generations of the Irish immigrant Kilworth family – a Kennedyesque-type clan engulfed by demons of the past and a continuous curse of misfortune.

The story centres on Charlie Kilworth, who recounts the tragic tale of his abused and eventually institutionalized mother Lily, as he embarks on a search for his unknown father. Meanwhile, his partner Alexandra is desperate for a child, but he will not submit to her for fear he will pass on the madness that consumed his mother.

‘It’s modest and promiscuous, a blend of all the elements in the book,’ says Sullivan, who describes the film, with pronounced hand gestures and an intensity in his voice, as he sits in a director’s chair on the studio set of an opulent King Edward Hotel room, circa 1900.

‘There’s such a wide span of time in this film that every scene is individual. At some points it’s gritty, at others it’s upscale,’ he says on his directing style.

As for the adaptation, he says he’s dramatized many elements that are slim in the book, but he sticks to its essential theme – the cycles of life.

Findley consulted with Sullivan on the genesis of the characters during the scriptwriting phase, but has since maintained his distance.

Sullivan Entertainment’s first feature film, The Piano Man’s Daughter, which has been presold to the cbc, was shot between Sept. 22 and Oct. 26 in and around Toronto and at the Sullivan backlot in Scarborough, where Wind at My Back and six other Sullivan projects have been shot over the past three years (since the prodco bought it).

Inside the studio, the director shoots a scene in an old farm house, where, in typical Sullivan fashion, every antique detail is taken care of, including century-old portraits hanging on walls that are painted and stenciled to look like wallpaper, ‘just so we could get the perfect green to work with the light,’ explains the director, moments before rehearsal.

Outside, in the backlot, stands the face of a turn-of-the-century-looking town, endowed with everything from a train station, an antique bus and a Royal Dominion Bank to Yeun’s Tidy-Kleen Laundry and a movie theatre with Wizard of Oz displayed on its marquee. On any other shoot day, however, the mock town might have appeared as a country fair or the Wyatt Piano Factory.

Capturing the flavor of Toronto as it existed in the early part of the century also sent the production to Oshawa, Whitby, Uxbridge and the Toronto Islands.

And the lack of authentic locations required that portions of the film be created through the use of green screens, mattes and digital technology.

For instance, Cambridge University was recreated on Centre Island by using its rivers and fields to substitute as the university grounds and then digitally transferring a shot of some Cambridge buildings into the background.

toybox is handling the special effects.

‘Wardrobe, hair and makeup have also been intense,’ says Sullivan, as there are characters who age more than 30 years throughout the film. Crewson, who plays Ede Kilworth, Charlie’s grandmother, for example, goes from 28 to 60 years old.

Bob Saad is dop, Ray Lorenz is art director, and Elizabeth Young is line producing.

Also starring is Dixie Seatle, Sarah Strange, Marnie Mcphail, David Hemblen, Chris Wiggins and R.H. Thomson.

The film is being distributed by Sullivan International and subdistributed in the u.s. and Canada for theatrical release.