Montreal: Like the never-say-die disco lyric – Upside down and inside out – Cinar Entertainment continues to defy the odds with an impressive slate of new and returning shows.

The company reports 29.5 hours of live-action films and series and 227 half-hours of animation are in various stages of production or post-production. Total half-hour orders slated for delivery this fall through to January 2002 stand at 286, says Peter Moss, president of Cinar Entertainment.

Cinar is producing 40 new episodes of Caillou in its all-new, live-action/animation format as well as 25 episodes of the Kratts brothers’ preschool series Zoboomafoo. Caillou launches on pbs this fall. Zoboomafoo is licensed by tvontario and is set for a second season on pbs.

Thirteen episodes of season seven of Are You Afraid of the Dark? are in late post phase for delivery to Nickelodeon and Family Channel, while the tv movie Buttercream Gang is also in post. The feature film Forgotten Attic, a coventure with Feature Films for Families in the u.s. that’s loosely based on the book The Velveteen Rabbit, began principal photography here April 1 under the direction of Michael Landon Jr. Cinar has world rights except for the u.s.

‘We haven’t cancelled a single series so far,’ says Moss. ‘We have lived up to all our commitments to date.’

In animation, Cinar is producing 10 new episodes of the top-rated pbs series Arthur – nominated for three Daytime Emmys this year – for a total of 75 half-hours, as well as a one-hour Arthur holiday special. Arthur also airs on cbc and Radio-Canada and on bbc in the u.k.

Also in production are 20 new episodes of the animated Caillou; 13 half-hours of Treasure, presold to ytv and bbc; 13 half-hours of A Miss Mallard Mystery, coproduced with cctv in China and picked up by Teletoon in Canada; and 13 half-hours of Twins, coproduced with Flextech Rights in the u.k. and ytv.

Stop-motion production at the company’s FilmFair Studios in London, Eng. includes 13 half-hours of The Wombles and 13 half-hours of Upstairs Downstairs Bears.

Animation series in post at Cinar Studios (music, mix, online and conform edit, etc.) include The Baskervilles, Flight Squad, Mona the Vampire (sold to ytv and Germany’s zdf), the five-minute short series Mumblebumble and 13 new half-hours of Animal Crackers. Post is now complete on 26 episodes, French and English, of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.

Despite the loss of Canadian Television Fund assistance on Mona, ‘a substantial piece of money but not a very high percentage of the budget,’ Moss says production is underway on 13 new half-hours.

*FIFA win buoys Aquilon

Documentary producer Aquilon Film and director/writer Werner Volkmer were due for a small bit of luck. It’s finally come with last month’s prestigious win at the 18th International Festival of Films on Art, where the veteran producer won the $5,000 Prix Telefilm Canada for best Canadian work for A la recherche de Louis Archambault.

The film has received excellent reviews and is a highly personalized account of the filmmaker’s extended and difficult chronicle of Archambault, a little-known Quebec pioneer sculptor.

The director invested $26,000 out of pocket in the $154,000 doc, which had virtually no up-front funding. Later, there was a little money for post-production, and the film was subsequently sold to Tele-Quebec and Radio-Canada during the final edit. Bravo! recently picked up English rights for a version, to be translated by fifth estate journalist Francine Pelletier. The film is also in competition at Hot Docs!, May 1-7 in Toronto. Cinema Libre has domestic and international sales rights.

New doc projects from Volkmer (Batiya Bak!, Cole Palen’s Flying Circus, The Human Race: The Bomb Under the World) include a one-hour portrait of Robert Roussil. Research was done last summer in France and shooting is set for July.

Roussil is a renowned anarchist/artist (wood, concrete, ceramic sculptures) whose working-class Montreal background made him an outsider to the more famous middle-class Refus Global crowd. ‘He stayed away from that because he thought they were all intellectuals,’ says Volkmer. Roussil currently lives in France.

The project has development support from Telefilm Canada, sodec, Radio-Canada and Tele-Quebec.

Aquilon is also continuing shooting on The Astronomer King, a fascinating, one-hour doc on the 18th century Indian prince Sawai Jai Singh (1688-1743), credited in the East with turning astrology into the science of astronomy through his tireless remapping of the ancient Arab star collection.

Volkmer has already taped about 30 hours on location in Rajasthan, India, but the project hit a bump when the European coproducer went belly up. An ancient court storyteller and a modern-day hassling tourist guide share the past/present narrative. Additional footage, including special effects of the star maps, is planned.

*LikeWh@t at Melodeum

Melodeum Productions’ Jean Trudel has staked his future to two promising tv projects: a weekly music/variety/club series called LikeWh@t, in prep for cfcf-tv and programming vp Bill Merrill; and a sitcom series called Night Owls from Scott Falconbridge (writer/producer of On the Spot Players), in development for cbc and comedy boss George Anthony.

Trudel says the pilot for the weekly one-hour music and dance magazine will be taped next month at Club Stereo or the former Juste pour rire location, and will be done in the spirit of MuchMusic’s acclaimed Electric Circus. Celine Dion producer Ian Donald is on board as technical producer.

New projects from Melodeum, producer of many concert specials including Barenaked Ladies – Born on a Pirate Ship, Philospher Kings – In Concert and Holly Cole – Temptation, include the lifestyle/travel show Art de Vivre from director Marie-Claude Harvey and host Stephane Leduc (Perfecto, Tournee du Grand Duc). Trudel is talking to Canal Evasion, Radio-Canada and Tele-Quebec about a second window.

Another project, Petites histoires de linge sale, is a series of 13 gritty half-hour drama shorts from writer/director Francis Leclerc. It’s budgeted at $800,000. Les Ecorchees is a multimedia project based on the art of graffiti pioneer Zilon and being directed by Prix Boomerang-winning producer Francois Tessier (Printemps du Quebec).

Trudel’s partner, Gerard Pullicino, has directed several Celine Dion tv specials, including last year’s A Decade of Songs, broadcast on cbs and ctv. Pullicino also directed the Motion International family film coproduction Babel.

Harvey, who directed the Sudan-themed doc Waiting/Attendre for the National Film Board and was a first-prize winner in src’s Course Destination Monde, has some development funds from sodec for a three-hour doc series on globalization called New World/Nouveau Monde.

As for Night Owls, which has a projected budget of $2.6 million, Trudel says cbc is waiting for final drafts for three half-hours. He says he told the Corp. English-speaking Montreal deserves to be better represented on the national public network.

Meanwhile, Trudel wonders about the future of smaller, more risk-adverse indie producers when so much of the French-track public funds in music and variety are going to integrated players like L’Equipe Spectra and the recently melded tva/Motion juggernaut, ‘big houses that can afford eight to 10 lawyers.’

*More film action

The latest film action as reported by the stcvq includes the Richard Roy (Moody Beach) romance comedy Cafe Ole, a low-budget feature from Ficciones Films producer Pierre Laberge. Jocelyn Dubois is pm and filming is slated for May 1 to June 2.

Toronto-based producers Tony Johnston and Stephen Mayrand are in town for the action-film feature The Tunnel, with Daniel Baldwin of the famous Baldwin brothers both helming and performing. Richard Tasse is the designer and Carole Vaillancourt is supervising producer/pm. Shoot dates are April 17 to May 12.

Giles Walker (Never Too Late, Dooley Gardens) is directing the action on the new Motion International/Filmo Bandito production A Terrified Woman (working title), starring Nastassja Kinski and Stewart Bick. It’s a mystery-adventure in the h.e.a.t. collection (Hearst Entertainment Adventure/ Thrillers) from producers Elizabeth Ann Gimber and Geoffroy Patenaude, with filming set for April 19 to May 16.

The highly anticipated historical drama Random Passage is in active preprod mode for a May 22 start. Filming on the eight-hour miniseries goes through to late September on location in Newfoundland and Ireland, with John N. Smith directing the Des Walsh screenplay. The adaptation is based on the Bernice Morgan book Random Passage and the sequel Waiting For Time.

The shoot reunites Smith and Walsh, the director/writer team on the award-winning Productions Tele-Action/nfb miniseries series The Boys of St. Vincent. Producers are Barbara Doran and Jennice Ripley of Passage Films, St. John’s, and Lorraine Richard of Montreal’s Cite-Amerique.