Toronto: Nicholas Tabarrok is going for a magical realism vibe with his latest project, and will see the results when Perseverance wraps its four-week shoot in Ontario and Halifax at the end of the month.

The picture, a copro between his Darius Films (The Limb Salesman) and L.A.-based Catch One Productions, is set in a small East Coast fishing village and follows an aging lobsterman who snares a mysterious sea moss in his traps – changing the lives of his family and of the other townsfolk.

Colm Meaney (Nouvelle-France, Star Trek: The Next Generation) stars along with Alberta Watson (24) and Graham Greene.

‘It’s a really sweet, charming story,’ says Tabarrok. The ‘low- to mid-budget’ pic shot for three days in Halifax, three in northern Ontario and the remainder in Toronto.

Commercial director Adam Massey makes his feature debut, working with DOP Patrick McGowan (Show Me). The picture is exec produced by Tabarrok and Neil Shaw. It does not yet have a distributor.

Darius is also about to cast its comedy Weirdsville and plans to send director Allan Moyle (New Waterford Girl) to the Prairies to shoot in early 2006.

‘It’s firmly and proudly set in a Canadian prairie winter, with cars sliding into snow banks, falling icicles, people falling through the ice,’ says Tabarrok, ‘so we won’t be shooting until February.’

The film recounts the seamy goings-on (‘hookers, drug dealers, satanic cults and hippies’) in a small farm town and comes from a script by Will Wennekers (Night Class). ThinkFilm will distribute in Canada, Shoreline Entertainment in L.A. has the foreign rights.

Weirdsville has been brewing at Darius since 2002, about the same time the company was developing The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico, the mock-bio of a country musician that was recently picked to play next month’s Toronto International Film Festival.

‘It’s smart and funny and has some great music, so I really think the kind of film-literate audience that TIFF attracts will really appreciate it,’ he says. Terrifico screened at SXSW in Texas in March, a good fit, he says, for the pic’s country music theme. ‘Austin is really the home to the outlaw country movement, we had to screen there. Next to Toronto, it was the closest thing to a hometown crowd.’ *