The latest from Montreal’s EyeSteelFilm and Vancouver’s Anagram Pictures are among 36 projects set to collect a chunk of $2 million in development funds from Super Channel.

The money was distributed through a 10-member team of creative development representatives who were positioned throughout the country, the pay service recently announced. B.C. leads the list of recipients with eight projects, followed by Quebec and Manitoba with six each, while five projects from Ontario have been selected.

Among them is Anagram’s horror The Thaw — the prodco’s follow-up to the 2006 zombie feature Fido — about a killer flu released from thawing arctic ice, which stars Val Kilmer and Martha MacIsaac.

Producer Danny Iron’s Foundry Films also collected money for the romantic drama Cairo Time, while Up the Yangtze producer EyeSteelFilm received cash for the documentary Taqwacore!, about the Muslim punk rock movement.

Other beneficiaries include Alberta filmmaker Gary Burns for the dark comedy A Teenagers Guide, Winnipeg auteur Guy Maddin’s Svengali and Zacharias Kunuk and Norm Cohn’s Baffinland + Live from the Floe Edge.

‘The list of selected projects is exceptional for the high number of first-time directors included, and we are also very pleased that the selected productions reflect Canada’s vibrant cultural diversity,’ commented Super Channel president Malcolm Knox in a release.

___________________________

This story has been corrected. Anagram is based in Vancouver and not Toronto as originally reported.