Vancouver: On Jan. 12, Brightlight Pictures starts production of its eleventh project since starting business two years ago. The Long Weekend is a Canada/U.K. copro with Gold Circle Films (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), the company that involved Brightlight in the Vancouver production of La La Wood earlier this year and, more recently, was coproducer of U.K./Canada copro White Noise, starring Michael Keaton.

Chris Klein (American Pie) and Brendan Fehr (Roswell) star in Long Weekend, a comedy about two brothers: one suffering some bad luck in life and love and the other whose mission it is to turn that bad luck around. New scribe Tad Safran wrote the script. Pat Holden (D.I.Y. Hard) will direct the feature, which will shoot on location in Greater Vancouver.

Chop, chop

The Woodcutter, a coproduction by U.S.-based Angel Devil Productions and Intrinsic Value, wrapped a month of production Dec. 12 in Vancouver.

The independent feature stars Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon 1-4), Linda Hamilton (Terminator 2: Judgment Day), David Strathairn (Lathe of Heaven), Ron Perlman (Looney Tunes: Back in Action) and newcomer Zoe Weizenbaum in a story about a traumatized Vietnam veteran who, while in self-imposed exile in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, is suddenly forced to care for a nine-year-old girl.

The film is the debut for director Gabrielle Savage Dockterman (Rainforest Researchers), an award-winning producer, director and writer of interactive video and television projects. Ken Miller, Savage Dockterman and Nancy L. Babine cowrote the script, which is based on an original story by Miller about his experiences in the Vietnam War and the internal struggle after.

Isen Robbins and Aimee Schoof, partners in New York-based Intrinsic Value (XX/XY, Anything But Love), are the producers. Vancouver producers Ron McLeod and Blake Corbet (Anagram Pictures) are coproducers.

Producers on a roll

Producer on Davie is in production with four documentary projects.

WebCam Girls is a broadcast-hour doc for W Network by director Aerlyn Weissman (Little Sister’s vs. Big Brother) that explores website owners – from performance artists to cyber-sex vixens – and what remains hidden when women put themselves in front of or behind the camera in the digital age.

Scared Sacred is a feature doc, in coproduction with the National Film Board for VisionTV and theatrical distribution. Director Velcrow Ripper (Bones of the Forest) visits the world’s ‘Ground Zeros’ in search of the survivors who have found a pathway to creative survival in the aftermath of disaster.

100% Woman is a Documentary Channel project by director Karen Duthie about transsexual mountain biker Michelle Dumaresq.

Lost Book of Ancient Medicine is a limited Japanese/Canadian coproduction series for NHK, CBC, Vision and ARTE, codirected by Gary Marcuse and Japan’s Tetsu Itano, who together uncover the mystery of the Blue Beryl, the lost book of Tibetan medicine.

Producers on Davie, meanwhile, is developing three other documentaries – Bells of Balangiga (with director Jack Silberman) for Vision, Treasure of La Grandiere (David Springbett) for History Television and Hollywood Indians (Jennifer Wemigwans) for CBC’s Passionate Eye. The World War II period drama Eighteen, by writer/director Richard Bell, is scheduled for production in May, with Citytv as a broadcast partner.

X-tending a concept

Big Red Barn Entertainment in Vancouver has been able to turn its documentary Bikes on Ice, which was on display at the Whistler Film Festival earlier this month, into the first episode of the six-part series X-plore for CTV Travel.

Last month, producers were in Laos for a white-water rafting adventure. This month they are in Chile for a story about a lone cyclist pedaling north to south. Next month they are in Patagonia on a hike to discover the source of the Motoco River. Delivery of the series is scheduled for January 2005.

Bikes on Ice, about a 1,100-mile, 49-day bike odyssey along the frozen Yukon River, is directed by Ken Malenstyn and shot by DOP Frank Wolf. New York-based Tapestry International will handle sales and distribution.

Hot off Shelf

Low-budget DV horror feature Shelf Life wrapped two weeks of production in Vancouver and the spooky, abandoned Riverview mental hospital Dec. 15. Written, directed and produced by Mark Tuit (Somnambulist Imagery), Shelf Life tells the story of a couple who, after hitting a man with their car, learn he may be a murderer with delusions of humanoid parasites that feed on humans.

William MacDonald (Call of the Wild), Bryce McLaughlin (Front Desk) and Courtney Kramer (Jane Post) star.

The project was shot on the new Panasonic 24p advanced camera. Tuit hopes to generate sales through the Internet.

I got rhythm

Vancouver’s Make Believe Media has wrapped production on Bump and Grind, a one-hour television doc for delivery to Life Network early in 2004. B&G, directed by Lynn Booth and shot by DOP Heather Frise, follows the life of Kitty, a stripper on tour in Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria.

Make Believe is in development with a number of other projects including A Battle of Wills (CTV), a one-hour about the family feuds around estate disputes; Secrets (CBC Newsworld), about four teens and their choices about their burgeoning sexuality; In Transit: Mavis Gallant (Bravo!), about the Canadian writer; and The Lavender Prom (CTV), about the struggle to create a gay-straight alliance at a Vancouver school.

Save the whales

Campus Vets, a new series by Peace Arch Entertainment-owned The Eyes Project Development Corp., begins airing on Life Network Jan. 12. The 13-part, half-hour series follows young veterinarians at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon in the race against time to save injured and sick animals.

The Eyes is the last vestige in Vancouver of Peace Arch, which is now managed out of Toronto and is mostly focused on offshore genre video features.