winnipeg: 4 Square Productions of Regina will be crisscrossing the globe over the coming year to produce more installments of its Scarred By History series.

Gerry Sperling of 4 Square recently wrapped the second installment in the series, Manjing Nightmares, which explores the horrors of the rape of Manjing through the eyes of a family living in Canada. The documentary will be broadcast on History Television’s War Stories series and Toronto multicultural station cfmt-tv.

Scarred by History is distributed internationally by Centre Films, a subsidiary of Screen Partners in London.

Up next is Paradise Lost, based on the book by Montreal writer Elaine Maves, which chronicles the 150-year history of a prosperous Jewish family in Hungary and culminates in the Holocaust. The hour-long doc will air on History and scn. The Budapest and East Hungary shoot wraps in June, directed by Guo Fangfang, who helms all of the programs in the series.

In July, 4 Square is off to Poland to shoot Out From Underground, a look at the Polish underground during wwii. The project is a coproduction with Warmia-Mazury Film and will air on History, scn and cfmt (in Polish).

In September, Searching For Confucius goes into production in China. The one-hour is a pilot for Big Thinkers, a series profiling philosophical thinkers throughout history through the experiences of Canadians who are of the ethnic origin of these important leaders. Searching For Confucius is licensed to Vision and scn, and a Chinese version is being formatted for cfmt.

Cambodia is the setting for Among The Disappeared, a coproduction with Crest Communications of Singapore that follows the story of a young Cambodian whose family is uprooted in numerous revolutions and wars before finally settling in Regina. Production is scheduled for January 2001. History and scn have committed to a licence.

Sperling is developing additional episodes of the Scarred by History series set in Singapore, Ethiopia and Czechoslovakia.

He is also at work on a feature film, Baby Emma, to be coproduced with Beijing Dream Images Company in Beijing. The film is based on the short life of Chinese-Canadian baby Emma, whose unusual blood disease led to a worldwide search for donors. Telefilm Canada is involved in development.

Also in the works is a doc series on the cultural history of women based on the Maggie Siggins book In Her Own Time.

*Dreamtime shoots in Saskatoon

Principal photography began May 15 on Dreamtime, the first of three feature films to be shot this year by Saskatoon production company Edge Entertainment.

Shot on location in Saskatoon and surrounding rural areas, Dreamtime is an action thriller about a young woman who is drawn into a criminal lifestyle and, after spending a year in jail, returns for her share of a score she helped her mob-connected boyfriend steal. Complications arise when she’s injured and forced to seek help from her estranged husband Matt, a doctor, and while recovering becomes reacquainted with the nine-year-old daughter she left behind years ago.

Dreamtime stars Richard Grieco (A Night At The Roxbury, Mobsters, If Looks Could Kill), Brigitte Bako (Strange Days, Red Shoe Diaries, New York Stories) and Greg Evigan (Deep Star Six, Veronica’s Closet, B.J. and the Bear).

The film is penned by Vincent Monton and directed by Saskatchewan’s Gordon McLennan (The Trickster). Executive producer is David Doerksen, with Leanne Arnott producing and Phil Doerksen and Crawford Hawkins coproducing.

Director of photography is Mark Dobrescu.

Dreamtime will be distributed in North America by Edge and internationally by IFM Film Associates.

Edge is also closing financing on Now and Forever and The Impossible Elephant. Doerksen plans to shoot the three films back-to-back in Saskatoon, with Now and Forever slated to go mid-June and Impossible Elephant beginning the end of July.

*Credo settles the West

Credo Entertainment is looking for hearty souls who want to go back in time to the days of cowboys, homesteads and the wild west and are willing to take on the rugged prairie.

Another twist on the popular docusoap format, Credo’s new series Real West will follow two couples as they try to survive in conditions like those faced by Manitoba settlers in the late 1800s. The chosen participants will arrive by ox cart on an empty piece of prairie land and have a year to build a homestead, raise livestock, and grow a field of crops. Sorry, that means no modern amenities, no running water, no electricity, no grocery store.

Now, why would anyone be crazy enough to leave their homes, their jobs, their friends and relatives to rough it for a year? Because $100,000 is waiting for each couple that makes it through the year-long adventure – and they get to star in the 13-part, half-hour series slated to begin airing on History Television and Life Channel in fall 2000.

The series is the creation of Credo exec producer Jamie Brown. Shooting begins in June and will continue until the following spring.

*Producer Tour swings into Manitoba

Seeking offshore work and potential coproductions, Manitoba Film & Sound, the funding and development agency for the province’s film industry, played host to five l.a. production company execs during the seventh annual U.S. Producer Tour, May 23-26.

The l.a. contingent included Carrie Henderson (Turner Network Television), Jonathan Josell (independent producer), Mitch Paradise (Paradise Communications), Steve Rubin (Fast Carrier Pictures) and Brad Southwick (Triple Peak Productions).

Paradise and Rubin will be in Winnipeg this summer to shoot Bleacher Bums, an adaptation of the classic baseball comedy, for air on Showtime. Rubin’s prodco Fast Carrier has a first-look deal with Showtime, for which he is currently developing a McCarthy-era film based on the battle between Cecil B. DeMille and Joseph Mankiewicz for control of the Screen Directors Guild in 1950. Also in development for Showtime is Twilight Time, a true story of how writer Rod Serling created the most famous anthology series in history, The Twilight Zone.

Carole Vivier, ceo and Film Commissioner of Manitoba Film & Sound, says the Producer Tour has proved to be an effective way of demonstrating first-hand what Manitoba has to offer in terms of resources and services and as a cost-effective location.

*McPherson exits WIC

After five years overseeing feature, mow and series projects as WIC Entertainment’s director of creative affairs, Scott McPherson has left the company to return to writing and story editing.

McPherson is currently story editing the Canada/Australia coproduction The Catch, and will also be working with Minds Eye Pictures and Anaid Productions as the story editor on Mentors.

*Golden Sheaf winners

Cass, directed by Matt Gallagher and produced by Gallagher, Lisa Taylor and Michael Allcock, picked up the best of the festival and best documentary short subject prizes at the Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival’s annual Golden Sheaf Awards, held May 13 in Yorkton, Sask.

My Father’s Hands, directed by David Sutherland and produced by Jen Holness, won for best drama, best direction and best performance by a male (Ardon Bess). It also picked the SuperChannel Script Cash Award of $1,000 (Sutherland).

By This Parting, directed and produced by Mieko Ouchi, won Golden Sheafs for best experimental and best original music score. Degas and The Dancer, directed by David Devine and produced by Devine Entertainment, won for best children’s production and art direction (Cameron Porteous). My Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts, produced by Studio Magica and the National Film Board and directed by Torill Kove, took home the best animation trophy.

From The Inside/Out!, directed by Lorna Boschman and produced by Big B Productions, was awarded the National Film Board Kathleen Shannon Cash Award of $1,000. Daisy, directed by Dianne Ouellette and produced by de nova Productions, was named Best of Saskatchewan and received a cash prize of $750.

The full list of winners is available on the festival website: www.yorktonshortfilm.org

*Tyndal Stone unveils new media projects at WEM

regina-based new media producer Tyndal Stone Media unveiled its latest interactive project Between the Lines at the World Education Market in Vancouver on May 24. Produced with the National Film Board, Between the Lines was developed as a media literacy tool for use in schools around the world.

In Between the Lines, students are given tasks in television news editing, designing a psa, newspaper page layout, multimedia campaign, and music video and as the producer, writer and editor, build their own media projects.

The production involved internationally renowned media specialists John Pungente and Neil Andersen, as well as a host of writers, videographers, film editors, musicians, news writers, photojournalists, scriptwriters, animators, and voice and acting talents.

Jennifer Torrance produced for the nfb with Tyndal Stone principal Leif Storm.

At wem, Tyndal Stone also previewed Gabriel’s Story Quest, an interactive teaching tool for children from preschool through Grade 3. The cd-rom focuses on storytelling, encouraging children to create and record their own stories aided by Little Gopher.

*SMPIA elects new board

The Saskatchewan Motion Picture Industries Association’s 2000/01 board will be headed by president Anand Ramayya. Other members of the board include past president Lisa Donahue, treasurer Patricia Warsaba, vp – south Lanis Anthony, vp – north Doug Cuthand, and members at large Torin Stefanson, Wally Start, Mike MacNaughton, Chris Triffo, Virginia Thompson, Kevin DeWalt, Lealea Mair, Stephen Onda and Bill Braaten.

*Saskatchewan delegation invited to the Big Apple

SaskFILM and a delegation of Saskatchewan producers were recently invited to New York to promote the province’s film industry.

Saskfilm held a tax-credit seminar at the Canadian Consulate attended by a number of New York’s top production executives. The panel featured experts on the Canadian and Saskatchewan tax credit programs and highlighted the advantages of shooting in Saskatchewan. Previous successful Saskatchewan/u.s. ventures were also showcased.

The Tax Credit Panel included Dan McMullen, assistant vp, national manager film financing, HSBC Bank of Canada; Warren Nimchuk, head of the entertainment tax division at PricewaterhouseCoopers (Vancouver office); Charlene Paling, vp business and legal affairs, Blackwatch Entertainment; Louise Usick, director tax credits, Saskfilm; and, Maureen MacDonald, vp production, Eighty Seven Bear Images.

The Canadian Society of New York (an organization formed in 1897 to foster goodwill between Canada and the u.s. and the exchange of culture and economics) hosted the Saskatchewan contingent at a dinner reception and screening of Minds Eye Pictures’ Something More, marking the first time a Canadian motion picture has been showcased at the society.

The Saskatchewan delegation included Valerie Creighton, ceo of Saskfilm and Saskatchewan Film Commissioner; Mark Prasuhn, Minds Eye coo; Something More producer Maureen MacDonald and writer Peter Bryant of Eighty Seven Bear Images; and Lanis Anthony, Minds Eye vp communications.