Montreal: Jean-Pierre Lefebvre’s new film Le Manuscript Erotique opens as a sensational 35-year-old female publisher/book editor receives a draft of a novel called Le Manuscript Erotique. She secretly takes the manuscript home for the weekend and begins to realize the book’s story is her own, a denial of love and sex because of a bad first marriage.

The narrative mixes realism and fantasy as the lead, played by Lyne Riel, ‘meets up with the characters in the novel,’ says the filmmaker. Sylvie Moreau and Francois Papineau also star.

The film, Lefebvre’s 26th feature, is being shot in digital PAL format over 12 full days through to Sept. 6, mainly in Montreal, using a small six-person crew that includes DOP Robert Vanherweghem. Barbara Easto is the picture editor.

‘We could to this film for $3 million and it would be very stylized, but that is not what we want to do,’ says the director. ‘We want to do a very alive kind of cinema-direct film, even if it’s a fictional film [and] it’s written and not improvised.’

The director says he tries to make films about ‘real people, especially women,’ and likes to explore such themes as love, death, tenderness and desire.

Lefebvre, widely admired as ‘the godfather of independent Canadian cinema,’ is the subject of the inaugural edition of the Canadian Retrospective (Jean-Pierre Lefebvre: Videaste), a Toronto International Film Festival showcase devoted to Canadian directors and themes and programmed by Canadian film studies pioneer Peter Harcourt (see Special Report on TIFF, p. T-25).

Funding for Le Manuscript Erotique, budgeted at $400,000, comes from Telefilm Canada ($200,000) through its Low Budget Independent Feature Film Assistance Program (projects budgeted under $750,000) and broadcasters Tele-Quebec and Super Ecran. The distributor is Film Tonic.

Lefebvre (Le Fabuleux Voyage de l’ange, Aujourd’hui ou jamais) is producing through his company Cinak in association with Bernard Lalonde of Vent d’Est Films.

Cite-Amerique’s Wumpa’s World

Cite-Amerique has completed principal photography on the first season of Wumpa’s World, a preschool puppet/animatronics series airing in English in October on YTV/Treehouse TV and APTN.

Set on the brightly frozen landscapes of the Great North, Wumpa stars the ‘skibogan’ kids Zig and Zag, Tiguak the polar bear, snow bunnies Seeka and Tuk, and the storytelling walrus Wumpa.

The show required extensive preproduction and art direction in the creation of the magical world, a cross between a child’s dreams and the harsh and exciting world of the Inuit, says Greg Dummett, who is producing the series with Lorraine Richard and Luc Martineau of Cite-Amerique.

Besides the six beautifully crafted puppets, much effort went into the Zig and Zag characters, radio-controlled miniature snowmobiles.

The writing offers a positive message for the kiddies, useful dialectical notions like hot and cold, heavy and light, light and dark, and a soundtrack inspired by traditional Inuit chants and modern rhythms.

Wumpa’s World is based on an original idea by Dummett and Steven Westren, with a writing team made up of Bernice Vanderlaan, Carol Commisso and Cathy Moss, in addition to show directors Claude Boucher and award-winning editor Helene Girard. Carole Gosselin is the DOP, Patrice Bengle the art director. and Stephanie Gregoire the picture editor. Character design is by Philip Marcus and puppet design by Jean Guy White.

A French version is slated to air next fall on VRAK-TV and APTN.

Cite-Amerique shot 26 15-minute episodes at Studio Lasalle on a budget of $2 million, with support from Telefilm Canada, the CTF Licence Fee Program, the Bell Fund, Fonds du Savoir, YTV/Treehouse, APTN, VRAK and exporter Cite-Amerique International.

Meantime, filming is slated to begin Sept. 10 for a month on the first leg of the feature film Seraphin Poudrier (working title). It’s the classic Quebecois story of a terrifying rural miser first popularized in novel form (Un homme et son peche) in the 1930s then as a radio drama and long-running TV series (Les Belles histoires des pays d’en haut).

Director Charles Biname (Blanche, Marguerite Volant) is shooting with veteran DOP Jean Lepine (To Walk with Lions, The Player). Ronald Fauteux (Blanche) is the art director. Cite-Amerique’s Lorraine Richard and Louis Laverdiere are the producers. The distributor is Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm.

Jette’s Histoire de Pen

Michel Jette (Hochelaga) and Baliverna Films are shooting the director’s second movie, Histoire de Pen, a tough prison drama scripted by Jette and former jailhouse author Leo Levesque.

The film tells the story of Claude, a young man obliged to fight for his survival during incarceration in a violent maximum security pen. Emmanuel Auger (Karmina 2, Soowitch) stars in his first leading film role. Karyne Lemieux, David Boutin, Paul Dion, Dominic Darceuil, Deano Clavet, Louis-David Morasse and pro boxer Stephane Ouellette are also featured.

Craft credits go to DOP Larry Lynn (These Arms of Mine), art director Jean Kazemirchuk and costume designer Nicole Sabourin. Jette and Louise Sabourin are picture editing. Baliverna’s producing on a budget of $3.6 million.

The 30-day shoot goes from Aug. 2 to Sept. 14, with most of the action set in the old St-Vincent de Paul penitentiary.

Jette’s low-budget biker drama Hochelaga was the surprise hit at the Quebec box office last year, pulling in more than $800,000.

Funding on Histoire de Pen comes from Telefilm Canada, SODEC, Les Fonds Harold Greenberg (Astral Media) and Radio-Canada.

Distributor Christal Films anticipates a fall 2002 release.

Shorts follow Un Crabe

Montreal producer Luc Dery of Qu4tre Par Quatre Productions couldn’t be happier.

Andre Turpin’s film Un Crabe dans la tete (retitled Une Crabe), produced by Dery, is opening this year’s Perspective Canada section of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Qu4tre Par Quatre also produced La Moitie gauche du frigo, a thoughtful mockumentary feature directed by Philippe Falardeau. It opened theatrically last fall to generally excellent reviews and played for 20 weeks in Montreal.

‘We were lucky to get in when Telefilm and SODEC were open to new producers, about three and a half years ago,’ says Dery, whose company is currently shooting an 11-minute short called Mensonges, directed by Louise Archambault (Atomic Sake), to air on Radio-Canada’s Entree Cote Court. Funding came from the CTF, SRC, Telefilm and tax credits.

‘Lately, there hasn’t been as much money to go around and there are even more producers,’ says Dery. ‘It’s definitely not easy and you can never take anything for granted. Now Telefilm has divided the money for features in two. There’s a new corporate envelope scheme, so only some producers with a successful track record [based on box-office performance and festival participation] get money. We’ll start to see the effects of this envelope in about six months,’ he says.

This month, Qu4tre Par Quatre starts filming Snooze, a short from director Stephane Lafleur. The French-language production, running nine minutes (purportedly the length of time on most snooze buttons), is a comedy with funds from the National Film Board, SRC and SODEC’s Jeunes Createurs program.

Qu4tre Par Quatre is planning to head into English-language film next, to broaden horizons, says Dery. ‘We like the idea of reaching a wider market. English isn’t this big, mysterious thing to us. Our cultures are so similar.’

The five-year-old house’s principal is Jospeh Hillel, who coproduced Un Crabe with Dery .

Upcoming film action

Upcoming STCVQ film action includes the Denise Filiatrault comedy Il etait des fois (working title), shooting Oct. 9 to Nov. 19. The film is described as a satirical fairy tale and stars Filiatrault’s talented daughter Sophie Lorain, the investigating psychologist character in the top-rated Reseau TVA crime drama Fortier. Producers are Denise Robert and Daniel Louis of Cinemaginaire (Laura Cadieux, Nuit de Noces). The distrib is Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm. Pierre Gill (Lost and Delirious, Joan of Arc) is the DOP and Michel Proulx is the art director.

All of Cinemaginaire’s comedies have been successful at the box office, the latest being Emile Gaudreault’s Nuit de Noces, with distributor Films Seville reporting receipts of more than $2 million.

The Videofilms producing team of Robert Menard and Claude Bonin began principal photography Aug. 28 on the high-budget Tele-Quebec biographical miniseries Jean Duceppe: L’Homme de theatre. Menard is directing alongside DOP Daniel Jobin (Nuit de Noces, Varian’s War) and art director Francois Lamontage (Dr. Lucille: The Lucille Teasdale Story, Au Nom du pere et du fils). Shooting wraps Nov. 9.