Eyes on The Prize

Toronto: Toronto’s Cinespace Studios is hosting the three-month shoot of The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio, a Robert Zemeckis-backed feature starring Julianne Moore, now in prep. The pic has been in development limbo since early 2001, when Zemeckis (Gothika) optioned the Terry Ryan memoir about her mother’s career as an ad jingle writer in the 1950s, and is now aiming for a 2006 release through DreamWorks SKG and Revolution Studios. Zemeckis produces with his ImageMovers partner Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey. Jane Anderson (Normal, How to Make an American Quilt) wrote the script and directs. Sean Davidson

The eyes of Nicolette Sheridan

Vancouver One of the busiest moviemakers in Vancouver in the past 12 months, producer Harvey Kahn is gearing up to make the thriller Transplant for foreign sales company PorchLight Entertainment. Production runs June 21 to July 10 in Vancouver.

Kahn calls the project – made for under US$2 million – a spec feature that will probably go to cable. In the storyline, Nicolette Sheridan stars as a woman who undergoes an eye transplant, only to suffer some post-operative visions from the previous owner.

Transplant is the second service gig for Kahn and L.A.-based PorchLight, following the November production of Teacher’s Pet, another thriller.

Kahn’s larger-budget in-house feature The Deal, which Kahn directed, is in post this summer. He says the The Deal may be a bit commercial for the Sundance Film Festival – where Kahn scored well this year with the Naomi Watts drama We Don’t Live Here Anymore – but he’s gunning for the festival circuit with the feature film. Ian Edwards

Disaster movie

Vancouver: Traveling to the colonies for what may be its first substantial West Coast production visit, the U.K.’s BBC is in Vancouver shooting the ‘factual drama’ Super Volcano until July 2.

The 2 x 60 miniseries stars Canadian Michael Riley (The Perfect Husband). Producer Deboragh Gabler is the local point person.

There were few details at press time, but the BBC has previously produced a documentary on super volcanoes, including one in Yellowstone National Park. These rare geological phenomena lie deep beneath the Earth’s surface, and when they blow – most recently 640,000 years ago – the planet is plunged into a protracted winter. Ian Edwards