Montreal: Shooting is underway on Mental (working title), a comedy for the nine- to 12-year-old international tween market. The series is production house Zone3’s first English-language drama.

Producer Patricia Lavoie (Lassie, Wimzie’s House) and creators/showrunners/supervising producers Leila Basen (The Neverending Story) and David Preston (Emily of New Moon) are shooting 13 half-hours over 52 days through to late November on location in suburban Chambly. The show follows the adventures of Donovan, a young teen who has four really cool characters lodged in his head. ‘He goes to junior high school, and their [the kids in his head] job is to get him through another day of Grade 8,’ says Preston. ‘[The concept] kind of dissects the minutiae of decision-making in the adolescent [mind],’ adds Basen.

Series players include Erik Knudsen (The Guardian) in the role of Donovan, Stefano Faustini, Brittany Drisdelle, Alexina Cowan, Jodie Resther, Justin Bradley, Mitchell Rothpan, Tod Fennell and Johnny Griffin. Tim Post and Tanya Anthony play Donovan’s parents.

Directors include Sean Dwyer, Gilles Walker (Galidor) and Michael Kennedy. Daniel Villeneuve (Galidor, Karmina 2) is the DOP. Donald McEwen is the designer and Elisabeth-Ann Gimber and Geoff Patenaude are line producer and PM, respectively.

Mental is budgeted at $5 million, with funding from broadcasters YTV and Television Quatre Saisons, the LFP, Telefilm Canada, Shaw Television Broadcast Fund and an advance from exporter AAC Kids. AAC’s major launch for Mental will be at MIPTV2003.

Lavoie and Zone3 are also shooting 45 15-minute episodes of the Radio-Canada/CBC preschool series Me Too/Moi.

The producer will be at MIPCOM (Oct. 7-11) scouting potential international partners for a mixed live-action/animation series (kids six to nine) in development as well as a dramatic family TV movie.

TVA buys kiddies show Patou

Films Zingaro and producer Pierre Beaudry have wrapped taping on 52

15-minute episodes of the kiddies puppet series Patou, a new weekend mornings property licensed over two years by Reseau TVA.

Martyne Prevost of MPV Productions created Patou three years ago, and so far, the little singing bear has been the subject of 12 books, five video releases and up to 50 other ancillary products. The series is being sponsored by restaurant Rotisseries St-Hubert, which is primarily interested in developing a live-performance component, says Beaudry.

Patou is played by puppeteer France Chevrette, who works inside the costume moving ears, mouth and eyebrows. The voice of Patou is Thomas Graton.

The show was shot in TVA’s Studio B, which was converted into Patou’s room, a sort of combined igloo and colorful kitchen. Patou is joined by teenage chums Vincent (Marc St-Martin) and Julie (Delphine Brodeur). Screenwriters are Louise Leneuveu and Frank Duval. Claude Boucher is the director.

The TV and new media production (including interactive TV) budgets total $1.1 million. Funding sources include Groupe TVA, the federal and Quebec tax credits and Fonds du Savoir (Videotron).

Zingaro (formerly Productions Sogestalt) and Beaudry (Albertine en cinq temps, Don Quichotte) recently completed principal photography on Bilan, a 75-minute TV movie adapted from the Marcel Dube stageplay by screenwriter Gilles Desjardins (Les Muses de Orphelines) in association with the author and directed by Lorraine Pintal, artistic director with Theatre du Nouveau Monde. The MOW will be broadcast on Radio-Canada’s venerable Sunday night showcase Les Beaux Dimanches, Oct. 20.

Bilan is a story of the downfall of a self-centred but otherwise successful businessman. It was shot over eight long days on location in suburban Deux-Montagnes on a budget of $770,000. The play was first presented on Radio-Canada in the early 1960s, before it was presented on stage, with cultural icon Jean Duceppe in the leading role.

Bilan stars Vincent Bilodeau, Sebastien Delorme, Ginette Morin, Catherine Trudeau, Henri Chase, Patrice Godin and Noemie Godin-Vigneault.

DOP Daniel Villeneuve originated on Digital Betacam. The picture edit is being done by Eric Genois at Covitec-Technicolor.

Funding comes from SRC, CTF and Fonds Cogeco. The exec producer is Luc Chatelain of L’Equipe Spectra.

Ciao Un Gars, une fille

Some 3,000 sketches/scenes later, the highly successful Avanti Cine Video sitcom Un Gars, une fille is wrapping production on 22 new episodes (for a total of 130 half-hours) for its sixth and final season on Radio-Canada.

The show, created by leads Sylvie Leonard (La Vie Apres l’Amour) and Guy A. Lepage (Rock et Belles Oreilles), takes a saucy, sometimes cynical look at coupledom and has been sold in format form by Michel Rodrigue of Distraction Formats (www.distraction.com) to more than a dozen territories, with excellent ratings results for France 2, Mega Channel in Greece, SVT in Sweden and TV3 in Spain.

Wayne Grigsby of Halifax’s Big Motion Pictures is shooting an English-Canadian adaptation, A Guy & A Girl, 13 half-hours for W Network.

Un Gars, une fille has six Prix Gemeaux nominations including best sitcom. Avanti producers are Jean Bissonnette and Luc Wiseman.

La Presse Tele serves up Ricardo

La Presse Tele’s inaugural production is the half-hour Radio-Canada morning mag Ricardo, a cooking/talk show hosted by Ricardo Larrivee and featuring several La Presse columnists. Ricardo jumped ship this season to join SRC after a stint with the competition and the Reseau TVA show Les Saisons de Clodine.

The service show is the first from La Presse Tele, the broadcast arm of daily newspaper La Presse, published by Gesca, a subsidiary of Power Corp.

La Presse Tele is headed by two well-known industry names, Marleen Beaulieu, former head of production at JPL Productions, the TVA affiliate, and Andre Provencher. Provencher is the publisher of the Trois-Rivieres newspaper Le Nouvelliste and a former senior exec with TVA and has served on the boards of TV5, Canal Indigo, the Canadian Television Fund, the Banff Television Festival and the Association canadienne des radiodiffuseurs de langue francaise.

JB Media grows thriller collection

The latest JB Media TV movie thriller Night Waves starts four weeks of preproduction Sept. 16. Josee Mauffette and Jean Bureau are producing this thriller about the dangers of illicit eavesdropping and short wave radio crime. Filming on location in Montreal goes from Oct. 16 to Nov. 8.

Filming on JB Media’s MOW The Interrogation of Michael Crowe, starring Ally Sheedy (High Art, The Warden) and Canadians Mark Randall (Blizzard, The Zack Files) and Michael Riley (Ace Lightning), wrapped on location in Toronto Sept. 5 under director Don McBrearty (Butterbox Babies, Emily of New Moon).

The Interrogation is based on a true story of middle-class parents whose son is subjected to an excruciating police interview following the murder of his 12-year-old sister.

The $4-million production is produced by Terry Gould (Sex, Lies & Obsession, Guilt By Association), with Bureau and Andrea Baynes exec producing.

The movie was financed by presales to Astral Television Networks, Court TV and Hearst Entertainment in the U.S. and Incendo Media, and will be broadcast on The Movie Network, Movie Central and Super Ecran in Canada, and on Court TV. Incendo has Canada and the U.S. while Hearst holds the balance of international.

Art Bell, EVP programming and marketing with Court TV, says he decided to extend the relationship with JB Media based entirely on the success of their first movie, Guilt By Association, starring Academy Award winner Mercedes Ruehl.

JB Media’s Wicked Minds was shot here earlier this summer. It was directed by newcomer Jason Hreno and stars Angie Everhart and local acting talent Andrew Walker.

Incendo, through Fox/Incendo, its joint venture sales company with Twentieth Century Fox International Television, has exclusive TV distribution agreements with Hearst Entertainment, HBO, GRB, Revolution Studios and Dick Clark Productions. Headed by president Stephen Greenberg, Incendo also handles theatrical distribution in the Quebec market for DreamWorks Pictures.

SODEC’s Jeunes Createurs

SODEC’s Jeunes Createurs program, reserved for filmmakers 18 to 35, is investing $470,000 in 14 short, medium- and feature-length productions.

New short film projects entering production include Lili by director Katherine Jerkovic, winner of the 2001 FCMM short film Prix Cours award; Contretemps by Elaine Dumont; Leo by Nicolas Roy; Je marche sur un fil by Derick Ashfield; Le Pigeon by directors Hugues Fournier and Sebastien Gagne; Big Money by Adrian Wills; and Infiltrator by Joshua Dorsey.

New medium-length productions include Barbie Phentex by director Brigitte Nadeau; L’Autoroute fantome by Genevieve Leduc and Mariane McGraw; Au Mepris de la Realite by Milan MileticB; and Documentaire sur Serge Lemoyne by the directing team of Christian Laramee, Simon Beaulieu, Benjamin Hoque and Alexandre Chartrand.

Feature-length productions in the program include Summer from director Phil Price and two documentaries, Wrestling for Life by Tracy Deer and Le Journal de Sable by director Etienne Desliere.

The next deadline for short and medium-length projects as well as feature-length docs (in French) is Oct. 1. The agency will host an information session on Jeunes Createurs Sept. 19 in Quebec City.

SODEC is also making a $5,000 investment in the development of a 15-minute short film screenplay in a competition program organized in association with FCMM. Finalists will be named Oct. 15.

In 2001/02, SODEC invested more than $1.4 million in the development and production of 98 Jeunes Createurs projects. The program has a dedicated website at www.jeunescreateurs.qc.ca.

Festival rounds for La Derniere voix

The dramatic short film fantasy La Derniere Voix/The City Without Windows was well received at the Toronto International Festival as part of this year’s Perspective Canada program and has been selected for various festivals in Europe (Finland, France, Sweden), the Vancouver International Film Festival (Sept. 26 to Oct. 11), the Montreal International Festival of New Cinema New Media (Oct. 10-20) and the Hawaii International Film Festival.

Pending invites include the the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival (Sept. 18-27), Festival du Cinema International (Rouyn-Noranda/Abitibi-Temiscamingue) and the Bilbao Film Festival in Spain, says producer Valerie Truong.

La Derniere Voix is a surreal promenade in a city without windows where it always rains. It was filmed in French last fall on a budget of $65,000 under the direction of Julien Fonfrede and Karim Hussain and produced by Anne Cusson, Fonfrede, Hussain and Truong of La Machine Ecran/Screen Machine.

Cast includes Marc-Andy Henry, Lexei Bacci, Mahalia Verna, Adrien Lacroix, Nathalie Fortune and Christopher Piggins, with a V/O by Pascale Montpetit.

Funders included SODEC and Tele-Quebec, with production services provided by Locations Michel Trudel, Productions de l’Intrigue (for the rain) and CJ Goldman for visual F/X.

Hussain (Subconscious Cruelty) is currently finishing his second feature film, Ascension, a Canadian coproduction between Screen Machine and Zuno Films and bankroller The Klockworx of Japan. Hussain wrote, directed and shot the film, which stars Marie-Jose Croze (Ararat, Maelstrom). He played a major role as programmer/organizer of Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival. Truong also played a key role in developing Fantasy. She is currently working in communications for the Canada Council for the Arts.