Vancouver: Jamie Brown – a Canadian who lives in London, Eng., and owns production company Studio 8 – has brought more work to Vancouver. He’s the Canadian partner in u.k. coproduction deals with London’s Thomas Hedman (Europa Productions) for the us$15-million comedy Kevin of the North and $17-million legal thriller Ignition.

Brown is already producing the syndicated Lorenzo Lamas action series The Immortal with Peace Arch Entertainment and just wrapped the feature thriller The Gateway with Milestone Entertainment. Hedman produced the feature film called The Guilty in Vancouver last year with Lisa Richardson’s Dogwood Pictures.

Production begins June 12 on Kevin, a broad Dumb and Dumber-style comedy about a 30-year-old travel agent who can only inherit the Alaska fortune of his grandfather if he finishes the famed Iditarod dogsled race.

Skeet Ulrich (Scream, Chill Factor) plays the lead, with Natasha Henstridge (Species), Leslie Nielsen (Naked Gun 2 1/2) and British comic actor Rik Mayall (Drop Dead Fred) filling out the rest of the cast roster. Brit Will Osborne (Twins, Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot) penned the script and British comedy veteran Bob Spiers (Fawlty Towers, Absolutely Fabulous, That Darn Cat, Spice World) directs.

Ignition, meanwhile, is written by Will Davies, who also wrote Hedman’s The Guilty. Guilty star Bill Pullman (Independence Day) returns for Ignition with cast mates Lena Olin and Rutger Hauer. Production begins about July 1.

Lions Gate Films has acquired the distribution rights for North America, while Hilltop in Los Angeles has secured foreign rights.

*It’s a fact

LFP money from the Canadian Television Fund made its way to 90 English-language documentary productions, 27 of them based in British Columbia.

Vancouver-based David Paperny Films and Force Four Productions each have three funded projects.

Paperny’s $2.5-million slate includes 13 half-hours of a series called Kink – about people in Vancouver who stretch the limits of sexual expression. It’s for Showcase.

Forced March to Freedom is a wwii feature documentary for History Television about the thousands of Allied airman who walked from a Nazi camp.

And at press time, the company was awaiting Telefilm Canada funding for the four one-hours that comprise Titans, a series inspired by the Peter C. Newman books about the Canadian establishment.

Meanwhile, Force Four’s Leo-winning series You…Me & The Kids will do another 26 half-hours as part of its fourth season, which will focus on teens. The series, which will have 104 episodes at the end of this season, airs on wtn.

Force Four’s one-hour documentary Innocent Tricks is for cbc’s Roughcuts and will tackle the topic of teenage prostitution in the suburbs. The company will also do a one-hour on Olympic rower Silken Laumann for cbc’s Life & Times series.

Other fact-based program producers receiving lfp money include Victoria’s May Street Group and Halfmoon Bay’s Raincoast Storylines along with Vancouver’s Insight Film & Video, Wheelwright Ink, Make Believe Media and Yaletown Productions.

Telefilm’s eip funding for documentaries is expected by June 5. A second round of lfp funding for docs will take place in the fall.

*Better late than never

Last year, actor Richard Crenna was hurt on the first day of production of By Dawn’s Early Light, an mow for Showtime by Dufferin Gate. But he’s back in the saddle again for production that resumed May 23.

The story, about a troubled teen who joins his grandfather on a cattle drive, also stars David Carradine. Production runs to June 21.

*Miniseries minute

Hallmark, through its Sextant Entertainment partner Matthew O’Connor, is doing the two-part, four-hour miniseries Voyage of the Unicorn, based on the book Voyage of the Basset. Beau Bridges stars in the production that goes to camera June 6 to Aug. 23.

And actors Stockard Channing, Linda Hamilton, Lynn Whitfield, Camryn Manheim, Mia Farrow and Peta Wilson star in the Showtime miniseries It’s a Girl Thing – a collection of vignettes. Dufferin Gate oversees production that runs June 5 to July 21.

*On edge

Hitler and Christ, a dv feature adapted by former Law & Order star and new Vancouverite Michael Moriarty from his own stage play, began post-production late this month.

In the film, two mentally ill men wander through Vancouver’s downtrodden Downtown Eastside believing they are Hitler (Moriarty) and Christ (Vancouver actor Wyatt Page). According to Moriarty, the film is about the tenacity of Christ and Hitler’s agony in the face of His love.

Brendan Keown is the feature’s director and producer. It’s best to let him speak for himself: ‘This film needs to be made because it’s controversial. There just aren’t enough controversial movies anymore. People focus too much on style and re-enacting moments from other films. [h&c] is risky on a cerebral level. There’s an edge to it that you can easily walk off of if you don’t handle the material well.’

*Screen time

Reg Harkema’s feature A Girl is a Girl (Femme Film Productions), a film about love and lust among a group of 20-year-old Vancouverites, will get a theatrical release on June 30. The feature, which debuted at the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival, is being released by Mongrel Media and will screen at the Carlton in Toronto and Tinseltown in Vancouver.

* Vancouver filmmaker James Dunnison’s first dv feature Stuff is one of 12 films in official competition at the DancesWithFilms festival in Los Angeles, sponsored by Warner Bros. and hosted by art house Laemmle Sunset 5 June 23-29.

The American festival for ‘films without stars’ sorted through 800 submissions to pick its final 12.

Stuff, a critically acclaimed black comedy about a hospital attendant who kills his mother and then goes on a mystical journey, features Max Danger, keyboardist for Toronto band Deadly Snakes.

The film was shot in Toronto and debuted at the Montreal World Film Festival. Rebecca Dunnison is cowriter, Roma Khanna is coproducer and William Morrison directed.

Credit where credit’s due

apparently Michael Melski shares none of the credit for writing Mile Zero as reported here last issue. It’s the original story credit that he shares with Andrew Currie – a distinction that matters to people with contracts.