Michael and them

Toronto: Who do you figure would be easier to get for an interview? The aristocratic and famously abrasive Conrad Black or Michael Moore? Don’t answer until you talk to Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk.

The husband and wife team – currently turning heads in the doc community with Citizen Black, their feature profile of the embattled news baron – want to make their next movie about the life and work of Moore, and have been following the Fahrenheit 9/11 director across the U.S. in search of an interview. So far, the results sound a lot like something from one of Moore’s own films.

‘It’s even more complicated than sitting down with Conrad Black,’ complains Melnyk, describing a series of dead ends and unreturned phone calls. ‘We really admire the guy, he’s at the height of his career and he’s changed docs as we know them. But we get the impression he’s ducking us.’

Caine and Melnyk were banned from Moore’s pre-election speaking tour when it made stops in Detroit and in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and were thrown out of a recent appearance at Kent State University. Their press passes were revoked shortly before one show on the grounds that they were making a ‘for profit’ documentary.

‘I said to them, ‘What about NBC? ABC? CBS? Why are you letting in news cameras then?” she recalls.

Moore – who, ironically, launched his career by chasing camera-shy CEOs in docs such as Roger and Me and The Big One – has a standing order against commercial doc crews at his events. A publicist for the Slacker Uprising Tour also claims, however, that Caine and Melnyk have been ‘very combative’ at Moore’s press conferences and that they misrepresented themselves by posing as reporters for Citytv Toronto, a charge both deny.

The project is backed by Citytv’s parent CHUM and by Canal D, and the pair hope to formally start production in the spring, after putting in for CTF. The self-distributed Citizen Black, meanwhile, aired recently on TVOntario and will play on SCN on Dec 2. Sean Davidson

Cold mountain

Edmonton: Mark Miller recently returned from the top of the world. The Edmonton filmmaker followed the crew of Ultimate Survival: Everest, a five-part HD doc series for Discovery Channel Canada, up the world’s highest mountain to film a one-hour ‘making-of’ doc on the science behind the series.

Miller’s one-hour Expedition Everest: The Journey Begins airs on Discovery on Sunday, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. to introduce Ultimate Survival: Everest, which premiers with a two-hour special at 8 p.m. The remaining four one-hour episodes will air Monday through Thursday at 8 p.m., giving viewers an inside glimpse into the experiences of Team Discovery, an international group of climbers and Sherpa guides, as they attempt to reach the summit of the world’s tallest mountain.

Miller and host Valerie Pringle shot from March 21 to April 7, with about 80% of principal photography completed on the Everest climb and the remaining 20% in locations including Kathmandu, Nepal, where climbers and filmmakers prepared for their expedition. Miller wrote, directed and shot the doc, produced by his Edmonton prodco Mark Miller Productions. Producer is Penny Park, with Discovery’s Ken McDonald exec producing. Expedition Everest: The Journey Begins was funded by Discovery. Laura Bracken