Vancouver: Writer/director Mina Shum is back in the driver’s seat with her third feature Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity. And for the third time, actor Sandra Oh is the lead.

Produced by Raymond Massey (Massey Productions, Vancouver) and Christina Jennings and Scott Garvie (Shaftesbury Films, Toronto) as a B.C./Ontario coproduction, the magic realism story is about Chinese-Canadians who live in Vancouver’s east side.

Mindy, a young girl, uses Feng Shui to help her single mother’s financial and romantic lives, but ends up yielding unexpected results.

The film costars Tsai Chin (Joy Luck Club, Gold Cup), Ric Young (The Last Emperor, Chain of Command), Chang Tseng (These Arms of Mine, The Agency) and newcomer Valerie Tian as Mindy.

Shum and Oh collaborated previously on Double Happiness and Drive, She Said. Dennis Foon is the cowriter of Long Life.

Production runs until Dec. 21. Odeon Films is distributing starting next June.

Snow Queen

Snow Queen is the newest miniseries produced for Hallmark Entertainment by Vancouver’s Sextant Entertainment. The four-hour production (two two-hour MOWs) is an adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen tale.

Wunderkind DOP Greg Middleton is handling the cameras while Emmy-winner Clyde Klotz handles the production design.

Production runs to Feb. 6.

U.S. forces

Among the U.S. features lined up to use Vancouver as their backdrop is MGM’s A Guy Thing.

Julia Stiles (O), Jason Lee (Vanilla Sky) and Selma Blair (Legally Blond) star in the story about a man who, after waking up with a strange woman in his bed, thinks he’s been unfaithful to his fiancee.

Veteran PM George Chapman oversees production of the romantic comedy, while Chris Koch (Snow Day) directs. Costar Lee will move on to the Vancouver-shot Dreamcatcher (Castlerock) when it begins production in January.

Meanwhile, in other feature production, After School Special is a German-funded independent feature about kids who make their pocket change by making porn films. Production runs to Dec. 21. Vancouver’s Dogwood Pictures is overseeing production.

Actor Tony Shalhoub (13 Ghosts) is a detective in Monk, an MOW made by Studios USA (a division of USA Network). Production runs until Dec. 20.

The short and long of it

Local documentary producer Trish Dolman (Screen Siren Pictures) is making the move to drama with Flower and Garnet, which is director Keith Behrman’s debut project. Previously, he directed and she produced the short White Cloud, Blue Mountain.

Flower and Garnet, a coming-of-age story, stars Callum Keith Rennie (Last Night, Due South), Colin Roberts and Jane MacGregor.

Shooting began Nov. 13 in Ashcroft (near Kamloops) and the Vancouver area. Odeon Films will distribute.

Dolman is also the producer/director of the feature-length documentary Ice Girls, which was completed at the end of October. Ice Girls, a Canada/U.K. coproduction exec produced by Brian Hamilton of Omni Film Productions, tells the behind-the-scenes story of three aspiring female figure skaters as they work toward elusive stardom in the skating world. The documentary is set to air on CTV and BBC in January.

Dolman produced Claudia Morgado’s short film Succulent, Tasty and Nice in August. Previously, Morgado made the short film Unbound, which Dolman also produced. ST&N, called a ‘sexy drama,’ stars Babz Chula, McGregor and Sebastian Spence.

Tailor made

The Overcoat, a critical and audience hit on the stage, was adapted for television this summer in Vancouver and will air on Radio-Canada Dec. 23 and CBC Jan. 10. Directed by actor and playwright Morris Panych, The Overcoat tells the story of a man, his overcoat and his simple life. The entire story – inspired by the work of 19th century Russian artist Nikolai Gogol and set to the music of Shostakovich – is told without dialogue.

Actor Peter Anderson reprises his stage role for television. Costar/choreographer Wendy Gorling shares the cocreator credit with Panych

Rhombus International distributes.

Still weird

Yaletown Entertainment’s Weird Wheels is back on the road with its second season for Life Network. Hosted by Arthur Black, the 26 half-hours tell the stories of the eccentric characters who drive strange vehicles. It debuts in February.

Yaletown’s fourth season of 13 Weird Homes is in post and started airing on Life in October. There are now 78 episodes of the series that, like Weird Wheels, explores the characters who create the strangest houses.

Doc talk

Vancouver’s Insight Film and Video is in post-production on 13 half-hours of Ghost Towns for History Television. Created by Maryvonne Micale, the series travels across Canada to uncover the stories in 13 lost communities such a Sandon, B.C., once Canada’s Sin City, and Ireland’s Eye, an abandoned coastal village off Newfoundland.

Maureen Kelleher and David Vaisbord also direct with Micale, while Kirk Shaw is the executive producer and Leigh Badgley is the producer

* The Whistler Film Festival presented the world premiere of Ski Bums on Nov. 14. John Zaritsky directed and Christian Begin shot the National Film Board documentary about extreme skiers and snowboarders in Whistler. Moving Pictures: Canadian Films on Tour supplies the rest of the program at the festival.

* Victoria’s Pan Productions is midway through shooting The Pipe Among Us, a documentary about bagpipe players across Canada. The show is hosted by bagpipe-playing stand-up comedian Johnny Johnston. Bravo! is the national broadcaster.

Who’s a bagpiper? Former chief of defence staff general John de Chastelain, who is currently in Northern Ireland overseeing the disarmament process, an Anglican priest from Nova Scotia, the Alberta-based head of the RCMP dog-training service and Winnipeg MP Bill Blaikie.

‘Considering they are among the noisiest people in the country,’ says director Jim Eidt, ‘we don’t know that much about pipers. But there’s a shocking number of them in Canada.’

Kudos

Vncouver screenwriter J. Andrew McEvoy won the first annual Slamdance SCI FI Screenplay Competition with his feature-length script The Pixelated Man, which beat more than 2,000 other scripts for the honor. The story is called a ‘paranoid conspiracy sci-fi thriller about memory, media, and the tyranny of corporate culture.’

The genre-specific contest, cosponsored by the SCI FI Channel, was developed in response to the increasing interest in the Slamdance Screenplay Competition. The winner will recieve US$1,500 along with introductions to dealmakers.