Toronto: You’ve got to hand it to Touch of Pink. The low-budget comedy opened at the height of summer blockbuster season, opposite Will Smith’s latest smash ’em up, and was not completely destroyed at the box office – bringing in roughly $51,000 from nine Canadian screens during its July 16-18 opening weekend, for a respectable $5,600 per screen average, on par with several Canuck hits and standing its ground against the US$52-million champ I, Robot. Touch of Pink earned another $79,000 over the weekend at 16 U.S. screens, and drew generally warm reviews from both sides of the border, demonstrating, again, that there’s room for small but well-packaged pics on summer schedules.

‘They’re all hectic seasons,’ said producer Julia Sereny of Sienna Films (Marion Bridge) shortly before the debut. ‘There is no good time to release. That’s the problem we have [with indie films].’

The gay romantic comedy – coproduced with the U.K. to the modest tune of $4.8 million and written and directed by Canuck expat Ian Iqbal Rashid – is carried by Mongrel Media in Canada, and Sony Pictures Classics in the U.S.

Sereny and partner Jennifer Kawaja are also moving forward on four new projects, and will soon deliver an adaptation of the Dora-winning play I, Claudia to CBC’s Opening Night. Kristen Thomas – who drew raves for her writing and performance in the one-woman show about a young girl traumatized by her parents’ divorce – adapted the script and stars, under direction from her stage helmer Chris Abraham and DOP Kim Derko. David Wharnsby (Elizabeth Rex) is editing.

Sienna is also closing in on One Dead Indian, an MOW for CTV adapted from the Peter Edwards book about the 1995 killing of native activist Dudley George. The pic will be directed by Tim Southam (Trudeau: The Prequel) in Montreal and copoduced with Kevin Tierney (Choice) on a budget somewhere near $4 million, with cheques from the Canadian Television Fund, CTV and Telefilm Canada.

That’s a lot for a TV movie, but the script calls for an expensive riot scene, says Sereny. Hugh Graham and Andrew Wreggitt are finishing the script and casting is now underway. One Dead Indian should air in ’05/06.

Sienna is also developing the feature Then Again, to be directed by Kelly Makin, and Step, a dance drama written by Annmarie Morais. Sienna will shoot Step here sometime in 2005, and has struck a cofinancing deal with Magic Johnson’s L.A. company Magic Hallway Pictures.