Things are really beginning to take shape for the 20th edition of the Atlantic Film Festival, running Sept. 15-23 in Halifax.

A number of new initiatives are being launched this year to help celebrate the milestone, including a directors film series, which launches May 25 and runs throughout the summer, leading up to the festival. Four East Coast-based award-winning directors have selected a film which they will discuss and present at monthly screenings.

Kicking off the series May 25 is Thom Fitzgerald and To Kill A Mockingbird. Lulu Keating will present The Celebration in June, followed by Bill MacGillivray with Wings of Desire in July. The series concludes in August with Mike Clattenburg and Bottle Rocket.

‘During the festival we will continue that series with a Canadian directors series,’ says aff executive director Gord Whittaker. ‘The idea is to use acclaimed Canadian directors for two screenings during the opening weekend [of the festival].’ Don McKellar has tentatively agreed to host the Canadian directors series.

The aff will also take its show on the road in November, making stops in Fredericton, Moncton, Charlottetown and St. John’s, where it will present an evening of screenings and receptions, offering a taste of the festival to those who couldn’t make it to Halifax.

Word is the Strategic Partners portion of the festival will have a u.k. focus this year. Festival producer Ann Bernier recently visited the u.k., hitting London, Glasgow, Dublin and Edinburgh during her tour. According to Whittaker, Bernier reported a lot of positive response and interest from the u.k. film community.

*White to run off with the circus – sort of

St. John’s, Nfld.-based producer Marian Francis White of Codlessco says her new docudrama project is creeping ever closer to reality. Tentatively titled Circus on the High Seas, the one-hour project will focus on the exploits of circus performer Benny Malone, who earned his stripes in the circus business by training in Paris and performing with the Ringling Bros. traveling circus.

‘It is a joining of those world circus forces, taking us on a romp through that world,’ says White.

In visiting the folks who taught Malone the craft of circus performance, White and her crew (a director is not yet attached) will travel far and wide to get their story.

‘[Circus performance] is a particular fascination of mine, and it is also something that hasn’t been done [on film],’ says White. ‘I love the idea of connecting with a particular style of performance, and this one has such connections in other countries.’

White’s daughter, who is currently training with the Cirque du Soleil, provided a little extra inspiration.

White hopes to get her show on the road soon, documenting a circus troupe as it travels by boat to remote areas of Newfoundland and Labrador.

‘[The circus] is going to those communities that you only hear such negative things about, but we’ve already experienced going there and seeing how much the local kids totally go bananas for this bit of fun,’ she says.

Circus on the High Seas has a projected budget of $500,000 and received development support from Vision tv and ntv. White is waiting for confirmation from the Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation for additional funding.

Greer ready For So Long

mentor Films’ Michael Greer has completed development on a new project entitled For So Long, which will begin production in October.

The television half-hour, being produced by Greer, Len MacKeigan and Paul Kimball of Halifax, along with David Moses of Prince Edward Island, is about a love triangle involving a lady and twin brothers. Sheldon Currie and Michael Melski penned the script based on a short story by Currie called Lauchie, Liza and Rory.

Greer will direct and reports CBC Maritimes and cbc Reflections have shown interest in the project.

Greer says a feature called Human Acts is also in the works at Mentor. The first stage of development has just been completed, with backing coming from the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation. Mentor is now entering phase two of development and is looking for support from Telefilm Canada and, once again, the nsfdc. Greer says he will be seeking production partners as phase two of development nears completion.

Melski will serve as the film’s screenwriter, with Greer producing and directing.

*Ollie online

Halifax’s Collideascope, known for its animation styling and forays into the mysterious realms of new media and interactive content, is taking its Teletoon special Ollie’s Under The Bed Adventures online. (The special is based on the Ollie series of interstitials.)

Titled Ollie’s World, the online version of the show features all-new Web content and will be ready very soon, says Collideascope president Steven Comeau.

‘The online version of Ollie is taking all the art assets we created for the animation on television, but since they are all done in Flash, which is a particular piece of Web animation software, they are all immediately reusable online,’ explains Comeau. ‘We are putting an interactivity engine around that and it’s going to be a total converged entertainment product, meaning not only do we have a licensable television program, but we also have a licensable online world we could license to broadband systems.’

Collideascope received financial support for the online project from the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation and the Bell Canada Broadcast and New Media Fund. Teletoon is not involved with the Ollie online project, but Comeau says the specialty network has been very supportive of the endeavor.

*First Works films to screen at Input

The Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation will screen films from its First Works program May 16 at Input 2000, an international public broadcasters forum. Launched last year by the nsfdc, First Works is an intensive, eight-week youth training program that gives participants hands-on experience in the art and business of making films.

The public broadcasters forum, sponsored this year by the cbc, runs May 14-20 in Halifax. Novice filmmakers from Nova Scotia created the films with the assistance of the nsfdc.

Input 2000, presented by the nsfdc and sponsored this year by the cbc, runs May 14-20 in Halifax. Organizers expect more than 1,000 international and 500 Canadian delegates to attend.

Other activities scheduled for the seven-day forum include a private reception for independent film producers and their selected guests on May 15.

In other news, the nsfdc is launching a new location scout training program.

‘We get a lot of scouts and people coming to scout and we just need to make sure we have people in all areas of the province to be able to help out when productions show up,’ says the nsfdc’s Ann MacKenzie. ‘We are probably going to do about 10 areas just to train location scouts and location managers.’

The first training program gets underway in Sydney, n.s., May 31.