Montreal: Somewhere in an isolated border region in 19th century Eastern Europe, village peasants begin an unholy search for two social outcasts falsely accused of murder. The unusual premise sets the scene for Kim Nguyen’s first feature film, Le Marais (The Marsh), an expressionist, art-directed fantasy from Quebec City’s Productions Thalie. Yves Fortin (Un petit vent de panique, Francophonie d’Amerique) is the producer. Francois Leclerc is line producer.

Players include Gregory Hlady, Paul Ahmarani, Gabriel Gascon, Jennifer Morehouse, James Hyndman, Alex Ivanovici, Elyzabeth Walling and Real Bosse.

Leclerc says the production will use a state-of-the-art digital FX and post-production process.

DOP Daniel Vincelette originated on 35mm film. High-definition visual FX and blue-screen elements will be added to create an entirely new composite film negative printed from the 2K digital master, a process used for the hit French movie Amelie, says Leclerc.

Monique Dion (Une Jeune fille a la fenetre) is art director. Richard Comeau (Maelstrom) is editing at Station 29. Francesca Chamberland is the costume designer and Julien Knafo is composing the music. Physical effects are by Twin FX.

Le Marais is budgeted at $2.3 million. Investors include Telefilm Canada, SODEC and Super Ecran. Film Tonic is the distributor.

Thalie principals include Andre Mailly, Michel Martel and Fortin. Credits include the new 12-hour docudrama series Entree Cote ‘Court’, licensed by Radio-Canada and Tele-Quebec, and the Genevieve Lefebvre and Andre Melancon feature film Le Ciel sur la tete.

Art docs from Ferrari, Biname

Two new art doc documentaries, Pepita Ferrari’s Joseph Giunta: A Silent Triumph and Charles Binames’s Gauvreau ou l’obligation de la liberte, are part of a double-bill program at Ex-Centris through to Dec. 6.

Ferrari’s (By Woman’s Hand, The Petticoat Expeditions) masterfully understated and very moving portrait of what is most noble in the human spirit chronicles Giunta’s final months and days as he prepares for an important retrospective of his paintings, created over seven decades. The story also reveals a loving relationship with wife Helen, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.

Selected credits go to DOP Marc Gadoury, sound recordist Diane Carriere and picture editor Barbara Brown. The original music is by Karen Young. French translation/voice direction is by Jacques d’Aragon.

Joseph Giunta: A Silent Triumph is produced by Films Piche Ferrari, with licences from Bravo! and Tele-Quebec and second windows for Knowledge Network, Saskatchewan Communications Network and Canadian Learning Television. Sales are by Distribution La Fete.

Biname’s treatment on Gauvreau counterpoints a chat with longtime friend Pierre Gauvreau (they met at the National Film Board), the artist’s difficult formative years and his personal philosophy, all vividly photographed in digital video in the artist’s garden. Much of the documentary is dedicated to Gauvreau’s ‘naive’ paintings. Gauvreau is also an accomplished screenwriter (Le Temps d’une paix, Cormoran, Le Volcan Tranquille) and producer (Mon Oncle Antoine, Le Temps d’une chasse) and is the recipient of the Academy Grand Prix for career achievement.

Biname is currently working on the historical feature drama Un Homme et son peche.

Gauvreau is produced by Jean-Pierre Morin and Chantal Bowen of Vivavision. Radio-Canada and Tele-Quebec are the broadcasters. The distributor is Avecom Distribution.

Undying love

Director/writer Helene Klodawsky’s feature-length docudrama Undying Love chronicles the poignant and often miraculous love stories of young people who rebuilt their lives before, during and after the Holocaust.

Producer Ina Fichman (Fire Station, Vampire High, Towards a Promised Land) of La Fete Productions says most survivors of the Shoah confess they never would have chosen or even encountered their mates had it not been for the complete shattering of their pre-war lives.

The story is told through the testimonials of survivors, using personal and intimate artifacts like photos and letters, materials from international archival sources and through what Fichman refers to as ‘illustrations,’ or dramatized sequences.

Interviews were conducted in Montreal, Toronto, Washington, D.C., New York, Amsterdam and in various cities in Poland throughout September and October. The budget is an impressive $1.1 million.

Undying Love’s craft credits go to DOP Francois Dagenais, editor Howard Goldberg, line producer Amy Webb, award-winning costume designer Nicoletta Massone, production designer Andre Chamberland, researcher Terry Foxman and coordinator/AD Caroline Bacle.

Casting is by Elite Productions.

Broadcasters include CTV, Vision TV, Tele-Quebec and NIK Media in Holland. Funding sources include Telefilm Canada, SODEC, the Canadian Television Fund LFP, the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, Health Canada, exporter Distribution La Fete and tax credits.

Losing a child

Montreal director/producer John Curtin’s latest is the one-hour doc Our Grieving Hearts, a portrait of parents who have lost a child. The testimonials are both courageous and very sad, ‘describing the ordeal of losing a child and the search for meaning after such a loss,’ says the director. The portrait includes a frank interview with Margaret Trudeau about a year after son Michel, aged 23, died in an avalanche in B.C.

Our Grieving Hearts is produced by Kaos Films Worldwide on a budget of $285,000 and commissioned by CBC’s Witness and Radio-Canada’s primetime doc showcase Zone Libre, with runs on RDI and Newsworld and second windows for WTN and CFCF-TV. Glenn Weston is the DOP. The original music is by Robert M. Lepage. Funding is from Telefilm Canada and the CTF.

A highly meticulous filmmaker, and sometimes day trader, Curtin’s credits include CBC Life & Times entries on Donovan Bailey and Margaret Trudeau and Ten Seconds of Eternity, an HD shoot for NHK, CBC and SRC.

Curtin owns one of three Sony HDW F900 24P cameras in Montreal. He’s developing a bio of world famous soprano Teresa Stratas.

Scott remembers

Director/producer Eric Scott of Les Productions des Quatre Jeudis is in editing on Je me souviens, a one-hour doc examining the historical record of anti-Semitism in Quebec, primarily in the 1930s and war years.

Scott says what happened here in the past is not unimportant, but the main motive is ‘coming to terms’ with the issues today.

The French-language doc, ‘a labor of passion’ developed and produced over seven years, includes interviews with Esther Delisle, author of The Traitor and the Jew, Senator Jacques Hebert, SSJB president Guy Bouthillier, and historians Pere Benoit Lacroix and Irving Abella, author of None Is Too Many, a damning study of the Canadian government immigration policies in the Mackenzie King era.

Scott says the doc’s tight budget, $150,000, meant he couldn’t afford outtakes from two National Film Board films on uber-nationalist priest Lionel Groulx. Instead, he used public domain materials from the National Archives and Record Administration in the U.S. for shocking film footage of the Nazi occupation of Europe, the National Archives of Canada and Archives Nationales du Quebec.

The DOP is Jacques Desharnais. Denise Beaudoin is the editor.

Je me souviens is licenced by Canal D, History Television, CFCF-TV and AB Satellite in France. Investors include the Canadian Television Fund LFP and Fonds Harold Greenberg.

On location

Angelina Jolie, Teri Polo and Clive Owen star in the Mandalay Entertainment feature Beyond Borders, a love story set against international humanitarian efforts. The shoot picks up a couple of days in December then continues in the new year through to the end of February.

The film is distributed by Paramount Pictures and directed by Martin Campbell. Producers include Lloyd Phillips and Dan Halsted. Phillip Meheux is the DOP. The famed Wolf Kroeger is the shoot’s production designer and Claude Pare is the art director.

* Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Drew Barrymore and Sam Rockwell star in the quirky Miramax Films comedy Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Clooney’s directorial debut. It’s in preproduction, with principal photography slated for January to April 2002.

Andrew Lazar and Jeffrey Sudzin are producing. Josette Perotta is supervising producer/PM. Jim Bissel is the designer and Isabelle Guay is art director. Both shoots are crewed by the STCVQ and are operating out of soundstages at Mel’s Cite du Cinema.