Montreal: Quebec cultural funding agency SODEC and the Quebec operations office at Telefilm Canada have announced combined production investments in seven French-language feature films, an entirely diverse slate of pictures that includes comedies, auteur films and dramas.

In its third 2002/03 round of funding decisions, SODEC is supporting five ‘private-sector’ projects and two minority coproductions (among the 21 proposals filed for the April 26 deadline), while on July 10 Telefilm announced investments in six productions, four of which are coproductions with Europe.

Shooting on the new round of projects begins later this summer through to next spring. Budgets are in the $3-million to $7-million range.

SODEC announced funding this month for Theatre de Quat’Sous artistic director Wajdi Mouhawad’s movie directing debut Littoral (EGM Productions/TVA Films), an adaptation of the 2000 Governor-General Award-winning stageplay. Littoral has toured Europe as a play and is adapted for the big screen by Mouawad and Pascal Sanchez. It’s an epic tale of a young man’s struggle to bury his father in his native Lebanon, and is slated to shoot in early 2003 in Montreal and Lebanon. The producers are also expected to apply to Telefilm.

Both SODEC and Telefilm, the latter through its selective envelope, are investing in award-winning spot director Jean-Francois Pouliot’s feature debut La Grande seduction (Max Films/Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm), a comedy about life way out in the country, starring the entirely brilliant Benoit Briere of Monsieur B fame and scripted by Ken Scott (La Vie Apres l’Amour).

Both agencies are also backing Denys Arcand’s Les Invasions barbares (Cinemaginaire/AAV), a sociological ‘regard’ at the now middle-aged personalities of Le Decline de l’empire americain. It’s slated to start principal photography in early September. French partner Flash Pyramide recently took a 10% position in the film.

And both agencies have committed to Gilles Noel’s (Erreur sur la personne) Jack Paradise (Nanouk Films and Verseau International with French partners Les Films Un Dollar/K-Films Amerique), a majority (80%) Canada/France coproduction drama about the evolution of the jazz scene in Montreal and a talented pianist played by Roy Dupuis (Un Homme et son peche, The Last Chapter).

Two upcoming Erik Canuel films also got the nod from the two agencies: the romantic comedy Nez Rouge (Telefiction/Christal Films Distribution), starring Patrick Huard and Gemeaux Award-winning actor Michele-Barbara Pelletier (The Favorite Game, L’Ombre de L’Epervier), slated to film this fall; and Le Tunnel (Bloom Films/Christal Films), screenwriters Paul Ohl’s and Mario Bolduc’s harrowing story of an infamous Montreal bank heist, starring Michel Cote and Jean Lapointe, expected to shoot in spring 2003.

Telefilm and SODEC are also investing in two minority Canada/France coproductions, French actor Michel Boujenah’s feature directorial debut Pere et fils (Max Films/AAV) and Bertrand Bonello’s Le Pornographe (producer Luc Dery/Film Tonic).

France has 81% of Pere et fils, but much of the film (around 70%) will be shot on location in Quebec this fall. Cast includes legendary French actor Philippe Noiret and Charles Berling.

Earlier, both agencies announced investments in Post-Mortem director Louis Belanger’s second feature Le Debut de la fin (Productions 23/Film Tonic), a story of the goings-on at a small country gas station.

Quebec Minister of State for Culture and Communications Diane Lemieux confirmed an additional $1.5 million in funding for SODEC on July 2, $1.25 million of which is earmarked for feature films. SODEC has been able to invest in 16 private-sector feature film projects so far this year, including two minority coproductions. SODEC anticipates investments of just under $10 million in feature film production this year, says agency film and television director Joelle Levie.

Telefilm earlier committed to Eric Tessier’s Sur le seuil (Go Films/AAV), a supernatural fantasy about a diabolical writer, starring Michel Cote. It films from late August to early October. Telefilm has approximately $20 million available this year for the production of French-language feature films.

Regional spin for Distinct Docs

CBC’s Distinct Docs is a national showcase for regional documentaries from the West Coast to Quebec, Atlantic Canada and the Great North. In other words, what viewers will see on Distinct Docs depends on where they live. The series airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. July 10 through Sept. 4.

Quebec programming includes Meilan Lam’s Showgirls (National Film Board), a moving profile of three black women who worked as Montreal nightclub dancers in the ’40s and ’50s; Tally Abecassis’ Warshaw on the Main (InformAction Films), a history of the landmark grocery store; Florchita Bautista and Marie Boti’s When Strangers Reunite (NFB), a profile of three Philippino women who share Canadian nanny experiences; and Max Wallace’s Too Colourful for the League (Diversus Productions), a look at racism in professional hockey.

Also on tap: Catherine Martin’s Ladies of the Ninth (NFB), a sentimental look back at the patrons and traditions of the now-defunct Eaton’s ninth-floor restaurant; the classic Janet Perlman and Derek Lamb animation short Lady Fishbournes Guide to Better Table Manners (NFB); Robert Grevaes’ and Michael Kronish’s Season of Change (Rightime Productions), a survey of homegrown perspective and recollection of baseball barrier-breaking legend Jacke Robinson; Paul Perrier’s Marymount Again, a high-school reunion story; and Alec MacLeod’s Fennario – His World on Stage (NFB), a portrait of the leftist Montreal playwright.

Hybride F/X for Spy Kids 2, Napoleon

The best marketing is often a happy, returning client, and that is the case for visual-effects producer Hybride Technologies, which is completing work as the principal supplier on Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, a Dimension Films picture slated for release across North American Aug. 7.

Hybride and special-effects supervisor Daniel Leduc produced 400 effects shots for the original Spy Kids, which pulled in more than $110 million at the U.S. box office last year. This time around, Hybride and a team of 70 artists and technicians dedicated eight months to the HD-originated production, creating more than 650 effects shots, a remarkable 42.5 minutes of digitalia. The other 400 effects shots were produced by five or six different suppliers.

Hybride, which is located in suburban Piedmont, QC, and favors a full range of Discreet installations – inferno, flame, flint and fire – created 3D submarines, heliocopters and fantastic creatures for the film using a Softimage|XSI environment as well as Alias|Wavefront Maya for organic and integration elements like water, fire and smoke.

Leduc spent four months on set in the Austin, TX region. ‘It’s not a hyper-big budget in American [studio] terms at US$35 million. That’s the trademark of Robert Rodriguez, who is known as a director who can make a film look like it was produced on a much bigger budget,’ says Leduc.

Hybride also created all 300 visual effects for Napoleon, a four-part, 90-minute Canada/France/U.K. miniseries coproduction, starring Christian Clavier, John Malkovich, Gerard Depardieu and Isabella Rossellini.

Historical sites and monuments were integrated with matte paintings; great armies and crowds of people were extended and multiplied; and effects were created to enhance explosions, stunts and memorable barren winterscapes.

The house also produced the complete broadcast package for the series and opening and end credits for both the American and European markets, ‘benefiting from the great compatibility between inferno and smoke software,’ says Leduc.

Napoleon is the first dramatic series to have a simultaneous broadcast across the EU. It has also been sold to A&E Networks in the U.S. and to Super Ecran and Radio-Canada in Canada.

Shattered Glass on location

There are signs Hollywood features are returning to Montreal following a few slow and worrisome months and a busy round this past winter (Timeline, Human Stain, Beyond Borders, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind).

Location filming on Shattered Glass begins here Aug. 12 and goes to Sept. 20. The film is based on the true story of American media whiz kid writer Stephen Glass, who fell from grace when it was discovered he fabricated many of his articles. The leads include Greg Kinnear (You’ve Got Mail) and Canadian actor Hayden Christensen (Life as a House, The Virgin Suicides), a huge young talent since cast as Anakin Skywalker by George Lucas in Stars Wars: Eipsode II – Attack of the Clones.

Production services on Shattered Glass are being provided by Muse Entertainment, which earlier worked on the globe-trotting Steven Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can and the Columbia TriStar release Levity.

The film is being directed by screenwriter Billy Ray (Hart’s War) and produced by Cruise-Wagner Productions (Tom Cruise’s and Paula Wagner’s house), Baumgarten Merims Productions and Forest Park Pictures, in association with Lions Gate Films. Wagner and Adam Merims are exec producers. Craig Baumgarten, Gaye Hirsch and Tove Christensen, Hayden’s brother, are producing.

The shoot is crewed by the STCVQ. Directors Guild of Canada (Quebec Council) department heads include PM Jacky Lavoie, production designer Francois Seguin and art director Pierre Perrault.

There are also reports the big-budget 20th Century Fox action feature The Day After Tomorrow could land in Montreal this fall. Competing locations are reported to include Toronto and Prague. A decision is expected very soon.