Montreal: The Jean Claude Lord holiday fantasy film Station Nord opens as a young postman loses his way in a forest on a dark, snowy evening. Saved by an elf, he’s taken to Pere Noel’s secret village and spends many years managing the ‘magic workshop’s’ mailroom until one fateful day he receives a letter from a desperate little girl asking for help.

‘This is the first time in Quebec cinema [history] that we have a Quebecois Santa Claus,’ notes producer Pierre Gendron of Bloom Films.

The $4.3-million movie is a coproduction between Bloom and Z Productions producers Paul Allard and Daniel Morin. Morin and Denyse Benoit wrote the screenplay in association with director Lord (Diva, Lobby).

Gendron says the film is among the first Canadian features shot in HD 24P (Sony camera system, Panavision lens). Footage will be transferred to 35mm for a 60-plus-print theatrical release by distrib Equinox Entertainment later this fall. Gendron says DOP Serge Desrosiers has experience in HD on the new Lance et compte, but the producers are motivated by the significant time savings with HD and the film’s extensive digital F/X from Tubes Studios producers Dean Lewis and Pierre Couture. ‘They are very competitive and I worked with them on [the La Fete drama series] L’Or,’ says Gendron. HD tests were conducted in Toronto and at George Lucas’ E Film lab in L.A. CGI and art direction on the shoot represent costs of more than $1 million.

Cast includes Xavier Morin-Lefort as Samuel the postman, Lansana Kourouma, Catherine Florent, Genevieve Dery, Nathalie Simard in the role of Comete, Gaston Lepage and Louis-Georges Girard.

Claude Palardy (Jasmine) is editing the picture at Global Vision’s brand new HD post/edit centre. Multi Vet is doing the post synch and Covitec is handling the sound mix. Choice of lab is yet to be determined.

Locations for the shoot (done in two blocks, April 7-12 and June 25 to July 21) include the rural Rawdon region and the Olympic Stadium, converted into the Palais des Ours/Station Nord. Investors include Telefilm Canada, SODEC, Fonds Harold Greenberg and Equinox, which has Canada and world rights, and the producers, who are the guarantors for the sponsorship investment. ‘Equinox has supported the project since the beginning and they’ve put in a lot of money,’ says Gendron.

The producer says he’s motivated by a project’s unique appeal, be it film or TV.

Bloom is in early prep on the Alain DesRochers feature Le Tunnel, a psycho drama from screenwriter Paul Ohl based on the Marcel Talon novel Et ca saute!.

More Quebec movies

Telefilm Canada’s Quebec operations office has announced new production investments in four French-language feature films and two English-language features.

The French projects are being funded through the Canada Feature Film Fund selective fund resources or through a mix of selective and performance funds, in those cases where a production company has a reserved or performance envelope.

New French-language production includes:

* Il Etait des fois, a comedy from Cinemaginaire producer Denise Robert, director Denise Filiatrault (Laura Cadieux, Laura Cadieux…la suite) and distrib Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm;

* 20h17, a contemporary drama from Corporation de developpement et de production ACPAV producer Bernadette Payeur, director Bernard Emond (La Femme qui boit) and Christal Films Distribution;

* the historical drama Seraphin Poudrier from Cite-Amerique Cinema Television producers Lorraine Richard and Louis Laverdiere, director Charles Biname and AAV; and

* Comment ma mere accoucha de moi pendant sa menopause, described as ‘an intellectual comedy’ from Studiofilm (Max Films) producers Roger Frappier and Luc Vandal, and first-time feature director Sebastien Rose, with the participation of distrib AAV.

On the English side, the agency announced support for:

* the big-budget family film adventure Mariposa Azul from Galafilm Production producers Francine Allaire and Arnie Gelbart, director Lea Pool (Lost & Delirious) and distrib Film Tonic; and

* the latest Tales for All movie Regina, a musical comedy minority coproduction (with Iceland) from Productions La Fete producers Rock Demers and Chantal Lafleur and director Maria Sigurdardottir.

This year, Telefilm’s Quebec operations office, headed by director Joelle Levie, has received 53 French-language feature film production applications, with 12 accepted.

Levie says there’s about $2.2 million (in selective and LFP funds) remaining for French-track movies in 2001/02. The next deadline is Sept. 17.

On the English side, Telefilm has accepted two of 11 Quebec production applications this year. Levie says the agency has received other interesting English-track feature film proposals, with the hope, or likelihood, more resources will become available in September. ‘There are perhaps two projects pending that we would like to finance if money becomes available,’ she says.

The French-language selective envelope (development and production/EIP and LFP) for 2001/02 is approximately $12.6 million. Total resources for French-track features this year is close to $23 million. Levie anticipates a selective production and development envelope of $3.5 million (EIP and LFP) for English-track movies.

Levie says concerns the new CFFF performance-enhanced regime will mean only commercial comedies get funded are clearly unfounded.

The average French-language movie budget this year is up to $3.4 million, while budgets for all 2001/02 movies range from $2 million to around $7 million, with the higher end including a number of international coproductions.

‘The portfolio is as diverse this year as last, and at this point there is no trend [producers] are only submitting entirely commercial film [proposals],’ says Levie. ‘We’re financing two comedies out of the 12 films, and we are still supporting first features [four], auteur films and family films.’

Here comes Josey!

Copie Zero Television & Media is yet another young Montreal production house on the move.

Copie Zero producer Matt Zimbel and The Secret Language of Girls writer Josey Vogels have received a lot of enthusiastic response following their entertaining CTV Canadian Documart pitch at Banff2001. Secret Language is a one-hour POV doc budgeted in the $600,000 range. Vogels, talented author of a book of the same name slated for publication in 2002, is also the author of a weekly syndicated sex/relationship column entitled My Messy Bedroom (www.mymessybedroom.com) and the host/ writer of a 26 half-hour series, also called My Messy Bedroom, new to WTN in November. The show, budgeted at close to $1 million, includes an opening rendez-vous/chat with friends Buffy Childerhouse and Isabelle Gomez-Morania, a four-minute comedy-drama segment featuring Josey as the fearless ‘Dating Girl,’ a thematic monologue a la Josey, and an on-location capsule exposure of the state of mind of men in bars.

Director Tara Johns (Killing Time, winner of the Canadian Film Centre’s Worldwide Short Film Festival), gives the show ‘a hands-on, artistic feel,’ says Zimbel.

MMB is in editing at Splice and Dromadere.

Projects in development at Copie Zero include Snow Job, a doc on Montreal’s snow removal industry from director Rene-Pierre Belanger for CBC Newsworld’s Rough Cuts, and And Yet I Blame Hollywood, a series of 90-second animated reviews of Hollywood movies written by David Stewart. The opening entry is Julia Roberts’ frontal defence of ordinary working people, Erin Brockovich. The concept represents an interesting opportunity for theatrical distribs looking for a new promotional window.

The house also produced the Canada Day special The Thrill on the Hill under contract to CBC and in association with Toronto producer Peter Hayman. Zimbel, a writer, record producer and former program director at MusiMax, launched Copie Zero with partner/exec producer Campbell Webster in the fall of 1999.

Eisenstein returns to Russia, Verite rocks on

The Renny Bartlett feature film Eisenstein, the story of legendary Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, has won the City Prize of St. Petersburg at the St. Petersburg Festival of Festivals.

Bartlett and crew actually shot a portion of the film on location in St. Petersburg, restaging Eisenstein’s production of Oktober. On the occasion, U.K. lead Simon McBurney in the role of Eisenstein was handed one of the famous director’s original cameras for scenes filmed on the roof of the world-famous Hermitage.

The late June screening in St. Petersburg was attended by Bartlett and producers Regine Schmid of Germany’s Vif Filmproduktion Zweite KG and Martin Paul-Hus of Montreal’s Amerique Film.

A Canada/Germany coproduction, Eisenstein was shot on a budget of $5.7 million on location in Russia, the Ukraine and Mexico. Distrib Film Tonic plans to open the film in September with an extended engagement at the Ex-Centris Cinema. Fortissimo Film Sales is the international sales agent.

Eisenstein was also an official selection at the recent Moscow International Film Festival.

But the current Canadian festival champion has to be Peter Wintonick’s epoch-chronicling documentary Cinema Verite: Defining the Moment, a coproduction between the English and French Programs of the National Film Board. It’s been invited to an unprecedented 47 film festivals, including Berlin, Amsterdam and New York. The latest gala screening was at last month’s Sunny Side of the Doc in Marseille, France as part of a tribute program to the Banff Television Festival, where Wintonick neatly appropriated a Special Jury Prize for the film. *