Guest columnist Kathy Barthel fills in this issue while Samantha Yaffe is away on her honeymoon.

Filming is underway in Toronto on the Alliance Atlantis Communications TV movie The Jenifer Estess Project (working title), a two-hour, event movie for CBS. The US$5-million film tells the true story of a young New York theatre producer Jenifer Estess (Laura San Giocomo – Just Shoot Me), who contracts Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and with the help of her sisters Valerie (Jane Kaczmarek – Malcolm in the Middle) and Meredith (Annabella Sciorra – The Sopranos), begins a foundation to speed research for a cure.

But it’s not a typical ‘disease-of-the-week movie, ‘ according to Ed Gernon, executive vice-president, movies and miniseries, Alliance Atlantis Television Production. ‘The film takes the disease-of-the-week formula and flips it on its ear,’ he says. ‘This is a lady with a ribald sense of humor and [it’s also] a strange kind of love story. This movie is about a woman who discovers love in the twilight of her life.’

The film features appearances by Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinnie) and Rob Morrow (Northern Exposure), who got their start at Jenifer Estess’ New York theatre company Naked Angels. Also starring are Edie Falco (The Sopranos), Julianna Margulies (ER), and Camryn Manheim (The Practice). All the actors worked for scale, and many donated their earnings to Estess’ foundation, Project ALS.

AAC Emmy and Golden Globe nominees Peter Sussman and Gernon (Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, Nuremberg, Joan of Arc) will executive produce along with Brenda Friend (A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story). David Marshall Grant and Patricia Resnick wrote the teleplay from a story by Valerie Estess and Geoffrey Nauffts. Co-executive producers are Jenifer Estess and Sue Leibman. Michael Maschio is producer.

This will be the first long-form project for director Jace Alexander (Law & Order, Ally McBeal), whose mother Jane Alexander has a cameo role in the production. The CBS airdate is undetermined, and the producers are looking for a Canadian network simulcast. The film wraps in Toronto, June 11.

July shoot for Hurt

The new feature film Hurt tells the story of three troubled 16-year-olds who meet at a party, become best friends, and over the course of the next 48 hours, plot to kill two of their fathers.

‘It’s a story about friendship, pain, family, relationships and how parents can really affect and influence teens through how they treat them,’ says producer Bob Banack (formerly of Goldman Sachs Canada, now partner and business affairs producer at Toronto’s Charlotte Bernard Entertainment). It is also a timely project, according to Banack, since it reminds us of real-life stories like the tragedy of Columbine High School.

Budgeted at $750,000, the film will shoot in July around Toronto and stars three young Torontonians as the troubled teens: Terra Vnessa, Stephanie Nickoladis and Andrew Martin-Smith. Banack and Joel Awerbuck (former partner in Paradox Productions) will produce through their company Charlotte Bernard Entertainment.

Steve DiMarco (Queer as Folk, Due South) will write, direct and coproduce.

The film is licensed to TMN-The Movie Network, Showcase and Superchannel, and negotiations are underway for another broadcast window. Canadian theatrical and international distribution are still up for grabs.

This sitcom is…virtual

We’ve got virtual reality, why not virtual sitcoms? Kathryn Greenwood (Whose Line is it Anyway?), Ed Sahely (The Drowsy Chaperone) and Jonathan Wilson (The Lion King, My Own Private Oshawa) had just come off a successful run at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre in 1996 in which they performed an improvised sitcom, inspired by lines of dialogue or statements the audience wrote down on strips of paper. These became the titles, subplots and characters of a virtual sitcom, but one with good old-fashioned interaction between the actors and the audience. ‘They are just so excited to hear their line,’ says Wilson. ‘They’re excited to find out how their line is going to affect the plot, how we are going to use it.’

The trio pitched the idea of doing a TV version to the CBC in 1996, just before Whose Line is it Anyway? became a hit in the U.S. They went home empty-handed, but later appeared as guests on producer Sandra Faire’s Comedy Now series in 1998. That led to an order for 13 half-hour episodes of This Sitcom Is…Not To Be Repeated, which premiered June 6 at 9 p.m. on The Comedy Network.

Episodes range from a love triangle set in a workout class, to the absurdity of Greenwood helping a circus dwarf escape from a cage of freaks.

‘There was a wave of [improv on TV] for awhile, and now I think that it’s receded a bit, but I think that ours is different enough that people will enjoy it in a different way,’ says Wilson.

Comedy will wait to see how the 13 episodes fare before making a commitment to more, but Leopard Distribution is scouting international sales.

Funding for the show was provided by the CTF and tax credits. It is produced by Hi Guys Productions, with executive producers Faire and Trisa Dayot. Producers are Bronwyn Warren and Millan Curry-Sharples.

A Crackerjack team

Crackerjack Inc. is the moniker of a dynamic group of eight young videographers who do it all – shoot, edit, and write – in both official languages and a few more. They used to be part of Mixed Media, a company which still exists, but this select group was christened in January 2001 to showcase the skills they’d developed since they began work on Culture Shock for the CBC three years ago.

The group is unique, says their mentor, executive producer Jean Menard (Radio-Canada, CBC’s The Journal). ‘It doesn’t exist anywhere else in Canada, or in the States as far as I can tell,’ he says. ‘You have a group of young video journalists, well trained, who are well aware of, and work to, the standards of the CBC in terms of journalistic excellence, and who are able to function on their own in the field in multiple languages.’

Cost-conscious broadcasters are attracted to the multitasking, multilingual, digitally savvy group.

‘Broadcasters are under some pressure to reflect diversity in a more serious way than they have up to now,’ adds Menard. Crackerjack’s abilities are also getting recognition in the form of awards for Culture Shock, like this year’s second consecutive Galaxy Award and last year’s Gemini nomination.

‘They are also in development on a documentary for the CBC’s Rough Cuts called Wasting Away, about highly educated immigrants who are washing dishes for a living because they can’t get credential recognition in their chosen professions.

‘Also in the works are three episodes of a new program called Emergence for upcoming Category 1 channel ARTV in Quebec. In addition to ARTV, they are looking for another broadcast commitment as well. Since the CTF rules on magazine shows have been tightened,’ says Menard, ‘you need to put together a couple of licences; you can’t do these things with just one.’

Documentary Ontario celebrates its 25th

Remember the dog that always ate your homework? Well for little Dorothy it’s a giant Hungry Squid, a National Film Board animated short from Oscar winner John Weldon (Special Delivery). The film is part of the NFB’s stellar fall lineup, which includes more than 40 documentaries, 14 of which are feature-length.

Other animation includes the hilarious Strange Invaders from Oscar-nominated director Cordell Barker (The Cat Came Back), about a couple whose lives are turned upside down by a strange little child.

The NFB will also introduce a new kids website called Destination for Kids (working title) in September geared for nine- to 12-year-olds.

And what better way to celebrate Documentary Ontario’s 25th anniversary than with Atanarjuat, the Inuit feature film that won the Golden Camera Prize for first-time directors at Cannes.

Also from the Ontario unit comes Bollywood Bound, highlighting Canadian-born South Asian actors looking for fame in India’s film industry, and Aftermath: Remnants of War, which shows the insidious after-effects of war, such as infant deformities caused by agent orange.

On a lighter note, there’s a fond look at that most Canadian of sports, Shinny, described by Documentary Ontario producer Gerry Flahive as, ‘hockey for the rest of us.’

Little Rock remembered

Award-winning writer/director Fern Levitt (Each of Us Has a Name) discovered the story of The Little Rock Nine when she read her children a book about it called Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Central High. It was written by one of the nine, Melba P. Beals.

‘Each one of us has to do something about this, ‘says Levitt. ‘We have to inform our kids and talk about our history because it can easily repeat itself and it does.’

But there were no hour-long documentaries about the event in which nine children of color were harassed and tormented as they tried to attend the all-white Arkansas school in 1957.

So Levitt set out to make one, and in July 2000 got the go-ahead from Barna-Alper Productions and History Television. Along the way she interviewed three of the nine children, including Washington businessman Ernest Green along with his close friend, former U.S. president Bill Clinton, who had honored the nine in a special 40th anniversary ceremony in 1997.

‘He speaks from the heart,’ she recalls of her meeting with Clinton. ‘These people are so important to him, what they did, he admires them.’

The film airs June 11 at 9 p.m.

Alliance Atlantis has distribution rights and is planning to distribute the film in the U.S.