Hockey history shoots in New Brunswick

Fredericton, NB – Seven months into the NHL strike and CBC is turning to hockey history to give fans their fix. Canada’s victory over Russia in the 1972 Summit Series, arguably one of the greatest moments in hockey history, is the subject of a $7.8-million miniseries prepping to shoot in New Brunswick.

Barrie Dunn (Trailer Park Boys) and Mike Volpe (Rideau Hall) of Halifax-based Summit Films coproduce Canada-Russia ’72 with Timothy M. Hogan (Open Heart) and Rick LeGuerrier (Bound for Carnegie) of Moncton’s Dream Street Pictures.

In addition to producing, Dunn also wrote the script with Malcolm MacRury (Lives of the Saints). After initiating the project more than three years ago, Dunn was unable to secure equity financing from the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation, but says that within a day, three other provinces had contacted him in an attempt to woo the production. Dunn and Volpe met Hogan and LeGuerrier at last year’s Banff Television Festival. Dunn says they clicked immediately and began making plans to shoot in New Brunswick.

Principal photography on the 2 x 120, helmed by T.W. Peacocke (The Eleventh Hour), will get underway March 14. Eighty percent of the eight-and-a-half-week shoot will take place in Fredericton, with the remainder to be shot in Saint John. Post-production will take place at Power Post in Halifax.

Casting is currently underway and, according to Dunn, it’s likely to be a challenging process.

‘The guys who played in the series – Paul Henderson, Bobby Clarke, Phil Esposito – are so well-known to Canadians, so we have to find great actors who not only resemble these guys, but who are also great skaters – it’s a pretty tall order,’ he says.

For non-leading roles, the producers are holding hockey tryouts in Halifax and Fredericton, with selections reserved for players who have experience in competitive hockey at the junior level or higher.

Canada-Russia ’72 receives funds from the CBC, the Canadian Television Fund, Lions Gate Films (Canadian DVD/video distrib), New Brunswick Film and provincial tax credits. Laura Bracken

Life in a Northern Town

Whitehorse, YK – The Tagish Lake meteor hit the skies over the Yukon with the explosive force of a small nuclear bomb shortly before dawn on Jan. 18, 2000. It set off not one, but two sonic booms on its way down, before blowing apart with the force of two to three kilotons of TNT, say scientists, waking residents in nearby Whitehorse and scattering debris across the border with B.C.

Not the sort of thing you forget, notes Daniel Janke, a longtime Yukoner and producer of Northern Town, a 6 x 30 miniseries about the now-famous meteor strike, partway through a six-week shoot in Whitehorse for CBC.

‘It’s sort of a ‘Where were you when the meteor hit?” he says. ‘It was a really big deal here.’ Janke wrote the script with Bob Martin (Slings & Arrows), Kate Miles and story editor Don McKellar, and produces with Daniel Iron. Gary Burns (waydowntown) directs with DOP Luc Montpellier (Hemingway vs. Callaghan). Luke Kirby of Mambo Italiano stars.

It is Janke’s first stab at producing (he’s usually a composer) and Iron’s first since leaving Rhombus Media last year. They met through McKellar.

It is also the first show being made under the new Yukon Film Production Fund, a government program looking to build the territory’s film industry. The $3.3-million show is a copro between Janke and Iron’s newly formed Foundry Films in Toronto. Yukon Film and Sound is putting up 30% of the local spend, up to $450,000.

Janke has lived in Whitehorse for eight years, and says there’s a surprisingly high concentration of film and other creative workers in the city of 23,000.

He moved north after a lengthy and frustrating stay in Toronto, realizing that, as a composer and writer, he’d get more work done if he was away from the big city. Ironically, he also started getting more jobs. ‘As soon as I moved here I started getting calls,’ he says, pointing to a Bravo!FACT short he directed and a piece he penned for a Waterloo, ON, string quartet. His thinking: getting out of the city helps any artist stand out from the crowd. ‘When you’re further away, you’re larger than life,’ he remarks. Sean Davidson

From India with love

Toronto – Producers Paul de Silva and Derek Luis are closing in on the final cut of Love’s a Gamble, their contribution to the CHUM anthology series 13 Stories About Love. The short drama – shot last year by director Rajiv Maikhuri and Trudeau DOP Norayr Kasper – is in post with editor Pete Watson, who is just now finishing the offline, and is set to air on Citytv Toronto and Vancouver by fall.

The $500,000 pic follows a recent widow (Ronica Sajnani) from her home in India to a new life with her son (Dhirendra of Jinnah On Crime) and beau (Nick Mancuso) in Toronto.

It’s backed by CHUM and Telefilm/CTF, and shot over seven days in Toronto, making use of a ritzy three-storey suite at the SoHo Metropolitan Hotel.

That’s where U2 and Madonna stay when they’re in town, Luis notes proudly. ‘We wanted a luxury environment because, with almost 50 people in the crew, it’d be impossible to be in one location.’

Maikhuri found the script by Harold Crooks (The Corporation) and Medrie Macphee.

Luis is also developing My Life in Canada for CBC, a comedy about a woman who opens her home to visa students. Sean Davidson

Multicultural comedy in Montreal

Montreal – Producer André Dubois (Si la tendance se maintient) is giving Quebec audiences a different perspective on French-Canadian culture in his new multicultural comedy series Pure Laine, currently shooting in Montreal and the surrounding area.

The 16-ep, half-hour series from Montreal’s Les Productions Vendome stars Didier Lucien (Les Dangereux) as a Haitian-born man who has lived in Quebec for 15 years with his adopted daughter from China, played by newcomer Melodie Lapierre. Additional stars include Macha Limonchik (Samuel) and two-time Genie winner Pascal Montpetit (Savage Messiah). The series is written by Martin Forget.

Principal photography began Feb. 21 with director Jean Bourbonnais (Voyageurs) and is set to wrap March 17. An additional block of shooting is scheduled for mid-May, and the series is slated to begin airing on Télé-Québec in September. The series, budgeted at $245,000 per episode, is funded through Telefilm Canada and Télé-Québec, as well as provincial and federal tax credits. Laura Bracken

Solar powered

Toronto – Ending a 14-day stay in Toronto and Hamilton, ON, Louis Gossett Jr. and Mark Dacascos (Brotherhood of the Wolf) have wrapped Solar Strike for director Paul Ziller (Bear With Me, Swarmed) and exec producers Tom Berry (Decoys), Lisa Hansen and Richard Schlesinger (Swarmed).

The cable feature, for the Sci-Fi Channel, is billed as a cautionary tale about the ozone layer, with Dacascos as a scientist charged with saving the Earth. Bob Saad (The Piano Man’s Daughter) is DOP.

Berry’s company Premiere Bobine (aka Reel One Entertainment) is also attached to Decoys 2, now in development with a shot of funding from CHUM.

The Movie Network and Movie Central also backed the first instalment, but are not involved in the sequel, according to a company spokesperson. Sean Davidson