St. John’s-based Kickham Productions’ founder Anita McGee (New Neighbours), a staple of the Newfoundland production community, is set to direct and produce a new feature film called The Bread Maker, penned by Sherry White (Beyond Zerba, Blue Blazes) who will also star.

The Bread Maker is about a woman who is a bread maker by day and romance novelist by night. When a personal relationship interferes with the quality of her writing and book sales, she must find a way to win back her waning audience.

The film is set in St. John’s where it will begin shooting in April, although some scenes have already been shot and shopped around in an effort to raise funding for the project.

The budget is approximately $750,000, with the Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation, a presale to Showcase and tax credits in on the funding. McGee says Jennice Ripley (Random Passage) may enter the fold as a producer when production begins.

The film will be completed sometime in 2003.

Meantime, the East Coast producer is wrapping a short film called Little Dickie, with hopes it will take a turn on the festival circuit.

Described as a ‘cowboy musical,’ Little Dickie is about a man whose prowess with the ladies has become somewhat legendary in a small community. The film was born out of a number of pickup lines McGee has been privy to over the years and the title comes from the come-on, ‘I have a little dickie, but I know how to use it well.’

Little Dickie’s budget is under $20,000, with many of McGee’s crew deferring wages.

The project was funded with a presale to Bravo! and personal and private investment. It stars musician Jeff Smallwood and Brian Downey (Lexx).

Creative Atlantic appears with Rutherford

Halifax-based Creative Atlantic Communications is currently in post on a new documentary for Global Television called As We Appear, about artist Erica Rutherford, who had a sex-change operation in 1979 at the age of 50.

According to Creative partner, producer and director Greg Jones, Rutherford has led an interesting, film-worthy life, having lived on four continents, and is one of Canada’s ‘most provocative but fairly unknown painters.’

The doc, which has received funding from Global and the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation, is executive produced by Creative Atlantic partner Janice Evans. Jones says the final cut should be completed by the end of February and delivered to Global soon thereafter.

Creative Atlantic is also preparing to launch season two of Liocracy (formerly Liography) on The Comedy Network. Liocracy, a spoof of A&E’s Biography, profiles outrageous and kooky fictional characters. The second season is being directed by Toronto’s Ron Murphy (who cut his teeth in comedy at Toronto’s Second City).

Jones says he and his partners on the show learned a lot from their first crack at the series and see it more as a pilot for season two.

‘This time we’ve made a real sincere effort to make this series quite believable even though it is totally absurd,’ says Jones. ‘All the characters play it straight. It seems much more successful as a spoof when you are drawn into something that’s believable when at the same time what these people are saying is so totally ridiculous.’

Leslie Nielsen continues as host of the show in its second season.

Creative Atlantic also has a bunch of new projects down the pipe. One is a pilot and possible dramatic series for the CBC called All Fall Down, conceived by Halifax writer Michael Amo (Blessed Stranger), who has been developing the project for about two years, with funding from CBC, the NSFDC and others. Jones and Evans will be producing.

Another project in the works is the 13-part documentary series Loot, about wealth across time, culture and spirit. It is being developed by Creative Atlantic and Layth Matthews, who Jones says has a strong understanding of financial markets and issues.

The company is also developing a soap opera spoof (dubbed a ‘soapcom’ by Jones) titled The White Way, a concept from first-time writer Nancy Hunter.

Punk X ready to rock CBC

Halifax-based director Edward Mowbray is working on the fine cut of his documentary Punk X, produced by Triad Films and Peter D’Entremont. The film is an update – almost a sequel – of a documentary Mowbray codirected in Toronto 20 years ago called Not Dead Yet about the punk scene and some of its more colorful characters. With Punk X, Mowbray revisits some of these characters and shows how some have ‘sold out’ while others are still living the punk-rock lifestyle.

Punk X, says Mowbray, is an auteur doc. He narrates and also shows how he ‘sold out’ after living the life in the Toronto punk scene. The film will air on CBC’s Rough Cuts in late winter/early spring.

The budget for Punk X is $143,000, funded by Telefilm Canada and a CBC broadcast licence. The Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation contributed to development. There is no distributor attached as yet, but Mowbray says a number of companies have expressed interest and are waiting to see the finished product.

Post has been a slow process as Mowbray has been directing episodes of the Cellar Door/Ocean Digital series Chef At Large. He shot the last episode of season one in Vancouver in late January.