A new film from Blackberry director Matt Johnson is among 13 feature-length films in the English market receiving funding in the latest round of Telefilm’s Production Program.

The 13 films, 11 of which are coproductions, will receive a total of $6 million in production support as part of the program’s low budget minority coproduction and big budget streams.

The untitled comedy by Johnson is produced by Toronto’s Zapruder Films. It is co-written by Johnson and Jay McCarrol, with Elevation Pictures attached as distributor.

The drama Neverman by director Rodrigo Barriuso is the only other project selected that is not a copro. Neverman is written by Barriuso and Kyah Green and produced by Toronto prodco Hawkeye Pictures. Sphere Films is distributing the film.

The copro titles include two Canada-Iceland features: the dramas Anorgasmia, directed by Jon Gustafsson, who is also a co-writer alongside Karolina Lewicka, and produced by Great Canadian Film Factory, and Sick Heart River by writer-director Graeme Maley and produced by Nish Media and Montreal’s Vieille Amérique.

Elevation Pictures is also the distributor for the Canada-Ireland animated drama Julián. The film is directed by Louise Bagnall and written by Juliany Taveras, and produced by Julian Aircraft Productions.

The drama Granny Lee, a Canada-South Africa-Ireland copro is co-directed by Ian Gabriel and writer Gabe Gabriel, produced by L.A., New York and Toronto-based Fae Pictures, and distributed by Montreal’s Noble Arts.

Director and screenwriter Jorge Thielen Armand’s drama Death Has No Master is a Canada-France-Venezuela-Mexico, produced by Caracas and Toronto-based prodco La Faena Films. Game Theory Films is attached as distributor.

The Myth of a Real Man is a Canada-Serbia-Bulgaria copro, written and directed by Lee Filipovski and produced by Saskatchewan’s Karma Film.

Montreal’s Art et essai is producing Takotsubo, a Canada-Israel copro, written and directed by Miki Polonski..

Things That You Kill is a Canada-France copro, directed and written by Alireza Khatami. The drama is produced by Things That You Kill Inc. and Montreal’s Band With Pictures Film.

The Canada-Germany drama Yunan is directed and written by Ameer Fakher Eldin, produced by Microclimat Films and distributed by Filmoption International.

The lineup of selected films also includes two historical dramas, the Canada-Slovakia copro Réveillon, directed by Michal Kunes Kováč, written by Maroš Hečko, Tomáš Dušicka, and David Cormican, and produced by Toronto’s DC Republic Productions; and Strangers in the Night (a.k.a. My Private War Criminal), written and directed by Ivona Juka and produced by Ottawa’s Quiet Revolution Pictures.

Telefilm will announce more production funding decisions in the coming weeks. The projects are assessed by an advisory committee of external and internal representatives which then makes recommendations to Telefilm.

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