Montreal: Cineflix has a new deal with the Women’s Television Network for e-love (working title), 26 half-hour episodes billed as the first global Internet dating series. ‘It’s different from a blind date [concept] in that the people we’re following are already committed [online] – or in ‘e-love,’ ‘ says producer Glen Salzman.

Once the online ties are in place, the show tracks the intrepid dating pairs as they prepare to meet in the flesh, complete with a summary epilogue.

The house is negotiating a tie-in with one of the world’s largest dot-com dating services, and the producer says the show’s casting will internationalize if a major presale comes through in the U.S. or U.K. Andre Barro or David York, head of Cineflix’s Toronto office, will exec produce. Shooting goes from May to January 2002. The budget is $2.2 million.

This year, Cineflix and partners have more than $8 million slated for production.

Pilot Season, a 13-part reality series in development, looks at six to eight fledgling actors as they try to make it in Hollywood. The show has interest from Flextech specialty channel Living in the U.K. and Life Network in Canada, and is slated to shoot during ‘pilot season’ next winter/spring on a budget of $1.5 million.

Salzman is also prepping the six one-hour doc series Rivers, a profile of the planet’s major rivers that’s being coproduced with the U.K.’s Wall to Wall, producer of the very successful Naked Planet. Interest comes from Discovery Canada, Channel 4 in the U.K. and other European broadcasters.

The house has a renewal from National Geographic International (Life was pending at press time) for 13 new episodes of Dogs with Jobs ($2 million), for a total of 39. The docusoap series Birth Stories has also been renewed for 26 new episodes. Shooting on the $2.5-million show begins in May and wraps next spring. International sales include Discovery Health in the U.S., Japanese specialty channel She Television and Living in the U.K.

And finally, Cineflix has wrapped The Mission, its $350,000 one-hour profile special on famed Red Cross field surgeon Chris Giannou for TVOntario, TFO and Vision TV.

What’s With Andy?

Cinegroupe has started production on 26 half-hours of What’s With Andy?, a traditional 2D animation series incorporating an innovative black-and-white storytelling (freeze-frame) style called DoodleVision. The show chronicles the slapstick adventures of teenage Andy whose only goal in life is to become the world’s greatest practical joker.

The series is based on the Just Stupid, Just Annoying, etc. book series from writer Andy Griffiths and illustrator Terry Denton. Michel Lemire (Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2) is the producer. Tim Deacon (Lion of Oz) is directing and Louyse Lambert (Kids From Room 402) is art director.

What’s With Andy? will air on Teletoon in Canada and Fox Family Channel in the U.S.

International sales keep piling up for CineGroupe’s Mega Babies, 26 half-hour adventures of a truly brazen trio of orphaned superpower babes, produced in association with Sony Wonder. First launched on Teletoon and Fox Family, the show has aired on RCTV Free TV in Venezuela, Antenna 3 in Spain, Fox Kids Latin America Cable & Satellite, and BSkyB and Channel 5 in the U.K. It is licensed by Televisa Free TV in Mexico, MediaSet in Italy, RTL4 in Luxembourg and Holland, TV3 in New Zealand, Foxtel in Australia and Antenna TV in Greece and Cypress.

CineGroupe is also in production on Sagwa: The Chinese Siamese Cat, produced in association with Sesame Workshop, and Wunsch Punch, the Michael Ende story coproduced with Saban International Paris.

Emerging talents

Two locally produced short film projects, Simon Webb’s Virtu@l Insanity and Eloise Corbeil’s Papillon, were selected for screening at last month’s Local Heroes International Film Festival, held in both Winnipeg and Edmonton. Both projects were 2000 National Screen Institute Drama Prize winners, a reflection of the vibrancy of Quebec’s emerging filmmaking scene.

In Virtu@l Insanity, a savvy Web designer played by Nathaniel Arcand (American Outlaws, Speaking of Sex) brings his fiancee home to meet the folks only to discover his small town has gone ‘virtual’ and everyone has vanished into cyberspace. Cynthia Knight (The Actress, Karla) plays the female lead and is also the film’s writer and producer. Webb is an established picture editor and is currently working on Muse Entertainment’s The Neverending Story.

Papillon stars the talented Michele-Barbara Pelletier (L’Ombre de L’Epervier, The Lotus Eaters, Ces Enfants d’Ailleurs) in the role of an actress who attends an audition and comes up against a highly temperamental director, played by Marc Bellier.

The multilingual Corbeil say she’s preparing another short film, eventually hopes to do a feature, and has a partially completed script for an animation series. Papillon was produced by brother Olivier Corbeil, who thanks both NSI and Park Ex Pictures’ Kevin Tierney for their active mentorship support.

DLI, Esperanto create WTA diary

Montreal’s DLI Productions and Esperanto Productions are coproducing She Got Game, Coming of Age of the WTA Tour, a behind-the-scenes chronicle of a year in the life of the sexy and rich WTA Tour (women’s pro tennis) as told by the players themselves, most notably Toronto’s Sonya Jeyaseelan (currently ranked 49th), a yet-to-be-named U.S. player and Spain’s Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario.

‘It’s really hard trying to sell sports docs. I’ve been trying for years. But human issues can be explored in any milieu,’ says Esperanto producer Bobbi Jo Krals.

Krals is thrilled with the support of Life Network program execs Jim Erickson and Barbara Williams, who recently helped out with a major $25,000 research/travel advance, even though the show is not fully financed. Life’s $100,000 licence fee is for a 90-minute feature special, while Radio-Canada – Sports, which paid $30,000, and TFO will air a one-hour version.

Krals is producing the $600,000 doc with DLI’s Irene Angelico and Abbey Neidik. Krals and Neidik are codirecting. Distribution La Fete is selling. The producers have applied for Licence Fee Program POV money, and to the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund and Telefilm Canada.

Krals produced and directed the one-hour comedy documentary Shrinkage.

The $275,000 doc, successfully pitched at a Banff Television Festival Market Simulation session in ’99, received significant support from the CBC’s George Anthony, and features standup comic/writer Sherry Shaw-Froggatt and her discovery of the ‘therapeutic value of humor,’ says Krals.

Shaw-Froggat’s journey leads her to meet headliners Eric Idle, Norm Macdonald and Kathy Kinney in venues like Nashville, Montreal’s Just for Laughs Festival and at a performance showcase at Banff.

CBC has first window followed by Vision TV and SCN. The budget is close to $275,000. Telefilm has invested and Distribution La Fete provided a $30,000 cash advance. Shrinkage’s exec producers are Ina Fichman and Robbie Hart. *