Montreal: Three Canadian films will have their world premieres at the 57th edition of the Mostra de Venice, the Venice International Film Festival, Aug. 30-Sept. 9. The trio includes Lynne Stopkewich’s follow-up narrative Suspicious River, a feature film packaged by Cassian Elwes of the William Morris Agency and adapted from the novel by American Laura Kisichke, and Robert Lepage’s first English-track movie, Possible Worlds, adapted from playwright John Mighton’s Governor-General award-winning play of the same name. Serge Denoncourt’s short Via Crucis is entered in the festival’s official short film competition.

Possible Worlds is a coproduction between Toronto’s East Side Film Company and Montreal’s In Extremis Images. Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution will release the film in Canada and the u.k. aac also has worldwide sales. Funding for Possible Worlds comes from Telefilm Canada (Ontario envelope), sodec and TMN-The Movie Network, with the participation of the cbc.

Lepage’s latest explores the concept of parallel universes through the narrative of a cubist love story and a gruesome murder mystery.

Stopkewich’s Canadian-content picture, financed by presales and u.s. investors, and distributed in Canada by TVA International, is described as a rather dark story of a young woman/motel operator haunted by her mother’s memory as she sleeps her way through the motel guest list. *