Winnipeg: director Guy Maddin’s Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary, a made-for-TV adaptation of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s performance based on the Bram Stoker novel, is being transferred to 35mm for theatrical release in Canada, the U.S. and overseas next year, more than a year after debuting on CBC’s Opening Night in February.

‘I never dreamt that there would be a theatrical release, and I have some pretty arrogant daydreams,’ says Maddin. ‘I just didn’t think anyone would want to risk the expense of running prints of a dance film for theatrical release.’

Maddin sent copies of the MOW, filmed in Winnipeg over 20 days last fall, to his international and U.S. distributors. After viewing the hybrid dance picture/silent movie, Maddin’s France-based distributor E.D. and his U.S. distrib Zeitgeist suggested a theatrical release. The two distribs will release the film in theatres in spring 2003, with two-week theatrical runs confirmed in New York and Los Angeles. Canadian distrib Domino Film and Television International also plans to release the film next year. Rhombus International handles television distribution worldwide.

The transfer process, initiated in April, is now close to completion. Producer Vonnie Von Helmolt was able to finance the transfer to 35mm as the film’s $1.6-million budget had not been completely exhausted in production.

Maddin has asked choreographer Mark Godden to work with him on future films to develop a stronger sense of movement and grace among actors. ‘The pleasure of shooting so much motion and melodramatic posturing is something I’ll never forget and I’d like to take it with me into all my projects from now on,’ says Maddin.

Production in Winnipeg busier than ever

According to Manitoba Film & Sound, this summer has seen the most simultaneous production ever in the province, with seven major productions shooting between July 1 and Sept. 1.

‘Marketing and relationship-building efforts are paying off. We’ve been working at it for a number of years and now we’re seeing those results,’ says Alexa Rosentreter general manager of Manitoba Film & Sound. And while the province’s production volumes are outgrowing the number of crew available, Rosentreter says the industry is committed to growth.

‘Definitely we’re feeling the growing pains, but are making a concerted effort to figure out how to best serve the situation,’ she says, adding that ‘there is a strong balance between Manitoba-owned productions and guest productions coming into the province.’

Among the seven major productions shooting in Manitoba this summer, four are homegrown and the remaining three are for U.S. television.

Jack Clements of Lester Beach Entertainment, which has offices in Calgary and Winnipeg and does a variety of Canadian as well as service production, is currently producing Tornado Warning, an MOW for U.S. broadcaster PAX TV. The US$1.4-million production wrapped Aug. 9 under Toronto-born director Tibor Takacs. The film shot over 13 days, primarily in Selkrik, MN, just north of Winnipeg.

Tornado Warning centres on a meteorologist (Gerald McRaney) whose early tornado detection device, which is doubted by many including his daughter Dee (Thea Gill), is put to the test when a tornado threatens to descend on a small town. CG is being handled by Winnipeg’s Frantic Films.

The biggest film currently in production in Winnipeg is The Snow Walker, budgeted at $10 million. The feature shot in Churchill, MN July 21-Aug. 27. It is produced by Robert Merilees and William Vince of i3, the Canadian arm of Infinity International Entertainment, with producing partner Ellen Little of L.A.-based First Look Media.

Adapted from Farley Mowat’s Walk Well My Brother by the film’s director Charles Martin Smith, the survival/romance tells the story of a bush pilot, played by Barry Pepper (Saving Private Ryan), and an Inuit woman, Kanaalaq, played by Nunavut’s Annabella Piugattuk, who are thrown together when their plane goes down in the Arctic.

After traveling from town to town throughout the North, casting director Jared Valentine found Piugattuk at a teen dance in Igloolik.

The Snow Walker is produced with funds from First Look Media, Lions Gate Films Canada, Telefilm Canada, British Columbia Film and The Harold Greenberg Fund. Scheduled for theatrical release late next year, First Look will handle U.S. and international distribution, with Lions Gate distributing in Canada.

Other films shooting in Manitoba over the summer include Alliance Atlantis’ The Mary Kay Project and The Crooked E, both MOWs for CBS; Three’s Company Revisited, an MOW for NBC; 2030C.E., a series from Regina-based Minds Eye Pictures and Winnipeg’s Buffalo Gal Pictures for YTV; and The Atwood Stories, a limited series of six half-hours for W Network from Winnipeg’s Original Pictures and Toronto’s Shaftesbury Films.

Costner in Calgary

Kevin Costner is in Alberta filming Open Range an hour west of Calgary. The US$23 million feature started shooting July 17 and will wrap the first week of September. Costner directs and stars as well as produces alongside David Valdes and Craig Storper.

Penned by Storper and based on Lauran Paine’s novel The Open Range Men, the film is a western based in the 1870s about cattle grazers and the conflict that begins to emerge between free grazers and landowners as permanent farmlands are established. Distributed by Buena Vista in North America and by Cobalt Media Group in Europe, Open Range also stars Robert Duvall (Gods and Generals), Annette Bening (American Beauty), Abraham Benrubi (Zigzag) and Michael Gambon (Standing Room Only).

CFTPA in the Prairies

The Canadian Film and Television Production Association announced on Aug. 15 the establishment of a Prairie Council composed of two producer members from each of the three Prairie provinces.

Kevin DeWalt of Regina-based Minds Eye Pictures will chair the council, which will be composed of Michael Snook of Regina’s WestWind Pictures, who will represent Saskatchewan wih deWalt; Jamie Brown of Winnipeg’s Frantic Films and Phyllis Lang of Winnipeg’s Buffalo Gal Pictures, representing Manitoba; and Doug MacLeod of Calgary’s Alberta Filmworks and Connie Edwards of Edmonton’s Souleado Entertainment for Alberta.