Vancouver: Local filmmaker Bruce Sweeney, a Mike Leigh follower, is back at the helm of his new film The Last Wedding. Like his previous film Dirty, Wedding has gone through a long development process that has included workshops with actors to rehearse scenes and tighten up the original, loose premise.

In Wedding, called a light drama, three couples struggle through their disintegrating relationships: a failed architect suffers professional jealousy when his wife blasts onto the architecture scene; a university professor and his girlfriend struggle with his ongoing infidelities; and a man on the rebound marries a woman on the rebound.

It’s a film told from the male perspective, says project producer Stephen Hegyes, who is concurrently producing the cbc series These Arms of Mine.

Featured performers negotiating contracts at press time were Frida Bertrani, Ben Ratner, Molly Parker and Nancy Sivak.

Telefilm Canada and Citytv have supported the project from the outset, says Hegyes, noting that the budget will come in at less than $2 million.

However, despite a storyline involving six Vancouverites living in Vancouver and suffering among other things the scourge of a leaky condo, the Licence Fee Program declined Wedding’s application for funding because it was not visibly Canadian enough.

Production runs July 31 to Sept. 1. Delivery could be in time for Sundance or Cannes. Montreal’s Blackwatch Releasing will handle Canadian and foreign sales.

*Ethics class

The legendary Mary Tyler Moore revisits the fun she had with her big-screen turn in Flirting with Disaster in the made-in-Vancouver comedy feature Cheaters (working title), a film with a low-brow pedigree.

Written and directed by Andrew Gurland – who won a Sundance jury prize in 1998 for his documentary Frat House – Cheaters is based on his life experiences. The story focuses on four friends who lie, cheat and steal their way through an ‘unjust’ school system.

Moore gets to play the high school principal. Elden Henson (She’s All That) costars.

Produced by New Line Cinema, Cheaters is scheduled for a summer 2001release. Production, concentrated mostly around Pt. Grey High School, began July 12 and runs to Aug. 30.

*Write your own ticket

British Columbia Film has announced its ‘second call’ of the year for competitive applications to the Development Program, part of the Television & Film Financing Program. The Development Program is open to emerging and established writers to develop long-form productions for theatrical release.

Up to a maximum of $15,000 is available for established b.c. writers (with credits on at least two features) to complete a first draft screenplay. Up to $10,000 is available to established or emerging writers to complete a final draft screenplay. Up to $15,000 is available to complete a script polish and to begin preliminary scheduling and marketing. Market support is not required.

Applications are due by 5 p.m. on Sept. 1. Visit www.bcfilm.bc.ca.

*Go go gadget

Level Nine is the name for a group of crack Web crusaders and the name of a new series for Paramount Television and upn that started production in Vancouver Aug. 1.

The show, which is in production until Dec. 18, is set in a present-day world where the Internet has become the tool of destruction for the most dastardly criminals. The Level Nine team – comprising characters created by actors Max Martini (Harsh Realm), Kate Hodge (Working), Romany Malco (True Vinyl) and a half-dozen other stars in the ensemble cast – uses its techno-know how and gadgetry to foil evil plots.

In other Paramount production news, Kim Delaney (NYPD Blue) stars in The Aladdin Window, a military thriller mow for cbs. David Keith (U-571) costars in the project that goes until Aug. 14.

*Drama bound

Busy Vancouver documentary producer Force Four Productions walked away from Banff with a development deal with cbc.

Mr. Jinnah, created by Vancouver journalist Don Hauka, is a one-hour drama series that revolves around an Indo-Canadian crime reporter. It’s the first big drama project for Force Four and, if the planets align, production could begin next spring for a debut in the fall of 2001.

The series is based on Hauka’s novel of the same name to be published by Toronto’s Dundurn Press next spring.

Force Four, meanwhile, is ensconced in production with Wakanheja, a 25 x 15-minute preschool kids series for aptn. An aboriginal puppet show produced by Dana Claxton and Kim Soo Goodtrack, Wakanheja – which means ‘sacred one’ in the Lakota language – features the characters Terry the Turtle, Bebe Buffalo and Flying Thunder. Sophia Merasty hosts the series.

*Rocky Mountain hi

Vancouver casting director/filmmaker Coreen Mayrs is getting more mileage from her debut short film A Feeling Called Glory as the only Vancouver representative in the third annual Crested Butte Reel Fest for short films.

Halifax filmmaker David Middleton (Joe) and Toronto filmmaker Paul Lee (The Offering) also made it past the selection jury to compete with 70 other films from six countries.

Prizes will be awarded in the categories of animation, comedy, documentary, drama, experimental and student. And winners will be broadcast on the u.s. specialty the Independent Film Channel.

The event in Crested Butte, Colorado, happens Aug. 16-20. Visit www.crestedbuttereelfest.com

*Toronto pronto

Meanwhile, five longer-form Vancouver films have made it into the Toronto International Film Festival.

Lynne Stopkewich’s dark feature Suspicious River leads the troupe that includes Low Self Esteem Girl (Blaine Thurier), Red Deer (Tony Couture), We All Fall Down (Martin Cummins) and Marine Life (Anne Wheeler). *