Halifax’s Second Wave Productions is once again teaming with Toronto’s Triptych Media to produce The Bay of Love and Sorrows, currently filming in New Brunswick. The feature film marks the third project delivered by the partners. The companies have come together before on The Hanging Garden and The Bookfair Murders.

‘I like Triptych a lot,’ says Second Wave’s Gilles Belanger, producing with Triptych’s Anna Stratton and New Brunswick producer Francis Bourque. ‘I like the type of material they do. It is a very progressive company.’

The Bay of Love and Sorrows, based on the novel by David Adams Richards, is about a man who returns to his home in New Brunswick in 1974 from a trip to India with a new ideology.

Belanger says his interest in the project is more than just rooted in filmmaking.

‘I live in Halifax, but I am originally from New Brunswick,’ he says. ‘I have always been a fan of David Adams Richards, and when the film finally came together, I knew I wanted morally to shoot the film in New Brunswick.’

With a budget of $2.9 million, The Bay is being funded by Telefilm Canada, the CTF’s Licence Fee Program, Film NB, The Harold Greenberg Fund and the CBC. Additional funding has come in through presales to The Movie Network and Super Ecran.

‘It is a beautiful film, and although it is a $2.9-million budget, it’ll look bigger,’ says Belanger. ‘I think people will be pleasantly surprised.’

The novel was adapted for the screen by Tim Southam, who will also make his feature directing debut. The cast includes Jonathan Scarfe, Peter Outerbridge, Zachary Bennett and Elaine Cassidy.

The shoot will wrap Nov. 2 and the film is expected to be ready in time for the 2002 film festival circuit.

Odeon Films will distribute in Canada. Belanger says an international distributor is not being sought at this time.

Simms swims Ashore

St. John’s-based Newfound Films began principal photography Oct. 15 on its one-hour drama Ashore. Produced, directed and written by Justin Simms, the drama explores the events following the Northern Cod Moratorium in 1992. Newfound’s Anna Petras is coproducing with Simms, and Ken Pittman is on board as executive producer.

‘It’s about a father and a son and how their relationship is affected by the moratorium,’ says Simms. ‘It threw many people and families into turmoil, especially in the out-ports.’

Although Simms is not from a fishing family, he, like every other Newfoundlander at the time, felt the loss of the fishery.

‘When the moratorium was announced, and especially when it was implemented, it created chaos all over the province,’ says Simms. ‘The fishery had been a way of life for a great many generations of Newfoundlanders. I was quite inspired by it.’

Simms points out that much poetry and many songs have been written about moratorium and its effect on the people of the province, but there has yet to be a cinematic interpretation.

The budget for the project is approximately $50,000, with funding from Telefilm Canada’s Emerging Filmmakers Fund, the Canada Council, the National Film Board, the Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation, a Linda Joy Media Arts Society Award, the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council and the CBC. The latter, says Simms, is an advance toward a regional broadcast, although a deal with the CBC has not yet been confirmed.

Joel Hynes stars as the son in Ashore and Glenn Towney plays his father.