Vive la irony

Montreal – Buoyed by the success of the Trudeau miniseries, CBC and Radio-Canada have combined forces with Montreal production house Cine Tele Action to create the six-part series Rene Levesque, based on the life of the late popular separatist Quebec premier.

Realizing the series, which is budgeted at $11.5 million, will have broad cultural appeal across the country, Rene Levesque is being shot simultaneously in both French and English. (An odd irony, considering Levesque’s stance on Quebec as a French province, rather than bilingual.)

Producer Claudio Luca, director Giles Walker (Never Too Late) and cinematographer Serge Ladouceur (Mambo Italiano, Savage Messiah) began shooting in Quebec City Aug. 14 and are slated to wrap in Montreal Dec. 9. There is no fixed date for broadcast, though it will air during winter 2005. Matthew Hays

Ego mania

Toronto – Following its July shoot in Toronto’s Little Italy, the Shaftesbury Films pilot Walter Ego is now in post with editor Allan Novak, who will piece the footage of stars Peter Keleghan and Diane Flacks together with animation by Mercury Filmworks in Ottawa. The would-be series – a sort of Seinfeld meets Ben Wicks – follows a newspaper cartoonist, Keleghan, through his daily run-ins with oddball friends and family, intercut with his own cartoony visions. Jeff Seymour (The Eleventh Hour) and Charmaine King also star.

‘This is very much a Toronto show. It’s very funny, fast and urban,’ says Shaftesbury head and exec producer Christina Jennings. ‘It’s not about the region. It’s all here.’

Shawn Alex Thompson (An American in Canada, Puppets Who Kill) was at the helm for the 2 x 30 ‘double pilot,’ flanked by DOP Luc Montpellier (Hemingway vs. Callaghan) and writer David Cole (Cold Squad). Cole and Keleghan also exec produce. The results will air on CBC, most likely in early ’05 not far from (see below) Getting Along Famously.

Shaftesbury also recently wrapped its 13-ep series ReGenesis for The Movie Network/Movie Central, set to debut after a major push in the fall. The ‘science fact’ drama looks at the implications of genetic technology and stars Peter Outerbridge. The company also recently delivered season one of Mischief City to YTV, and has begun work on a second, again in hand with Mercury Filmworks. Sean Davidson

This hour has 40 years

Toronto – Attention please. Would the owner of a lime-green 1962 camera crane please phone Colin Mochrie? He wants to borrow it for his new show. Mochrie and Debra McGrath (Paradise Falls) earlier this month put out a call for 1960s-era TV equipment to be used as props in Getting Along Famously, a one-hour pilot about the old days at CBC, for CBC. The pilot is almost done and will air in ’05.

The pair play a husband-and-wife team whose variety show hits the ratings skids, taking their relationship with it. Patrick McKenna, Jeffrey Littleman and Bob Martin also star. Kathy Avrich Johnson (Dying at Grace) produces. Mochrie and McGrath also write and exec produce, along with director Deborah Day (Expecting). Sean Davidson