A love story with a musical twist has settled in Regina, where the $7.7-million feature Lullaby for Pi is shooting for Saskatchewan’s Minds Eye Entertainment and Paris-based Forecast Pictures.

The Canada/France treaty coproduction marks the second collaboration between the companies, which teamed up on the thriller Walled In, starring Mischa Barton, in Regina in 2007.

The drama stars Rupert Friend (The Young Victoria, Chéri) as Tom, a reclusive former jazz musician so traumatized by the death of his wife that he can no longer sing. One night, while Tom is mourning his deceased wife in the hotel room where they first met, a mysterious woman named Pi (Clémence Poésy from In Bruges), rushes in to escape a pursuer and locks herself in his bathroom. The strange woman with a mathematical moniker asks Tom to sing her a lullaby and, from behind the hotel bathroom door, reignites his passion for music and for life.

Lullaby for Pi marks the feature directorial debut of France’s Benoît Philippon, who also wrote the screenplay.

Minds Eye’s Kevin DeWalt and Forecast’s Jean-Charles Lévy are producing, along with New York-based Christine Vachon (Boys Don’t Cry, The Company), who previously produced Far From Heaven with Lévy.

Studio 37 is a financier on the film and holds French theatrical distribution and video rights and international sales, which are being handled through Paris-based sales company Kinology. Minds Eye International has the Canadian rights.

Lullaby For Pi shoots until April 8 at the Canada Saskatchewan Production Studios and on location in downtown Regina, followed by nine days in Winnipeg.

Minds Eye has also spent the last 10 months shooting a 15-part documentary series, Just Around the Bend, following the adventures of two young Saskatchewan men who rowed down the Ganges River from New Delhi to Dahka, Bangladesh. There are no broadcasters as yet attached to the privately financed series.