Advertising executive-turned writer/director Bill Keenan has lured the seasoned acting chops of The Newsroom‘s Peter Keleghan and Leah Pinsent and Little Mosque on the Prairie‘s Neil Crone to his first feature film production, Eating Buccaneers.

Keenan is best known in southern Ontario for his classic radio advertisements for Pizzaville (‘It was a rainy day…’), and his ad-exec muscle attracted star power to the project. He had worked with Keleghan on a radio commercial a few years back, and pitched him a role in the ensemble piece after reading an article about his support for Canadian indie projects.

Keleghan’s off-screen partner, Pinsent, subsequently came on board, and casting director Stephanie Gorin (Hairspray), who has also worked on Keenan’s commercials, helped fill the remaining parts. The cast also includes Jeff White, Shannon Beckner and Steven McCarthy.

Wes Legge is the DOP, Andy Ames is editing and Gemini Award winner Jim McGrath (Degrassi: The Next Generation) is composing the music.

With shooting planned for 18 days in September in Ontario’s Algonquin Park and just north of Toronto, the 90-minute comedy follows the personality clashes of six ad execs following a plane crash in northern Ontario, focusing on Jerry, a hard-nosed VP, and Vanessa, an unlucky-in-love art director. The stress is made all that more poignant when the only form of sustenance for the marooned group is boxes of the fictional Buccaneer candy bars.

The low-budgeter was financed completely with private investments, receiving no public funding.

‘We did it the American indie route — doing a limited offering and selling shares like the Coen brothers did for Blood Simple,’ Keenan says.

Tentatively set for delivery in early 2008, the feature will be produced under The Bluebird Project shingle by Canadian Film Centre alums Jennifer Mesich and Mark Montefiore. Although it’s their first feature, the duo coproduced the short Night, which will screen at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival. Mesich says the team will be hitting the festival circuit, and is currently approaching film and TV distributors.