Montreal: Cinemaginaire, one of the country’s most consistently successful feature film production companies, is in various stages of preproduction on new films by Denys Arcand and Emile Gaudreault and its first-ever episodic TV drama.

Producer Denise Robert says Arcand’s Les Invasions barbares is a revisiting, not a sequel, more than two decades later of the lives of Le Declin de l’empire amercain’s (1986) smart, middle-class Quebecois characters, portrayed by Dorothee Berryman, Dominique Michel, Louise Portal, Pierre Curzi, Yves Jacques and Remy Girard. Declin cinematographer Guy Dufaux is shooting Invasions.

The film is the renowned director’s first original script in French since Jesus de Montreal (1989). Arcand cowrote Stardom (2000) and was essentially a director for hire on Joyeux Calvaire (1996) and Love and Human Remains (1993).

Principal photography will extend over 50 days in Montreal and the Eastern Townships, starting the first week of September. The distrib is Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm, with a presale to Radio-Canada. The production budget is $6 million.

The house is also prepping for a 37-day shoot, starting July 8, on Gaudreault’s Mambo Italiano, a coming-out comedy done up ‘Italian style.’ To be shot in English, the film is based on the hugely popular English and French stage play of the same name by Steve Gallucio, who cowrote the screenplay with Golden Reel winner Gaudreault (Nuit de Noces). Robert is producing with Daniel Louis. Patricia Christie is the production designer and Serge Ladouceur is the DOP.

‘Michael Mosca of Equinox Entertainment was very enthusiastic when he read the screenplay and called me and said he wanted to distribute. We had long discussions with [Mosca] and the director, and decided we wanted to work with him,’ says Robert.

Investors to date on the $5.3-million project include Telefilm Canada, SODEC, The Movie Network and Super Ecran.

Encouraged by Astral Media drama channel Series +, which has first window, and Reseau TVA, Cinemaginaire makes its episodic TV drama debut this season with Le Petit monde de Laura, a spinoff of the successful Laura Cadieux movies.

Denise Filiatrault will direct the seven-hour series, with each episode portraying one of the film’s central characters. Comedian Lise Dion stars as Laura in her first dramatic role.

Shooting goes from Aug. 5 to late November, with Robert producing alongside popular actress Sophie Lorain, star of the top-rated TVA crime drama Fortier. Francois Reid is line producer and the budget is $3.5 million.

Robert and Louis are the producing team on Filiatrault’s satirical comedy L’Odyssee d’Alice Tremblay, which Robert describes as a unique family fantasy with something for everyone. Distrib Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm is giving Alice a major P&A treatment and a 70- to 80-screen Quebec-wide opening June 28.

The minority Canada/France feature coproduction Au plus pres du paradis, filmed in large part in Montreal (instead of New York) late last fall, is from director Tonie Marshall and stars Catherine Deneuve and William Hurt. It is in post in Paris and will be released this fall by distrib Funfilm.

Jazz fest goes multi-camera HD

Amerimage-Spectra will use a multi-camera high-definition package to tape and edit six one-hour shows at this year’s 23rd edition of Festival International de Jazz de Montreal (www.montrealjazzfest.com), June 27 to July 7.

It’s the first time a multi-HD-camera (five to seven) setup is being used for a Quebec variety performance since the Celine Dion concert special recorded on Dec. 31, 1999, says president Pierre L. Touchette.

The HD shows, to be taped at the Spectrum de Montreal, have been presold in Canada to ARTV and Bravo!, and include Jorane and Marcus Miller (June 27), Omar Sosa and Dave Holland (June 28) and Orquesta Aragon and Bill Frisell (July 1).

Touchette, who attended the Banff2002 Television Festival earlier this month, says the HD process allows for easier transfer to other formats (PAL, NTSC, DVD and film). Footage will be digitized on a Discreet fire HD edit controller.

Dussault-Moliflex is supplying recording materials, Karisma is handling sound recording and Covitec-Technicolor is coordinating post-production. Amerimage-Spectra, a l’Equipe Spectra company, is the official TV producer for FIJM.

Touchette says international broadcasters are starting to look for more quality HD programming, although production costs are about 10% higher ($60,000 overall for the package) than for other formats (digital Betacam, Betacam SP).

At Banff, Touchette planned to meet with the high-definition unit from NHK in Japan. ‘We’ll see what happens,’ he says.

Amerimage will also produce a 90-minute festival retrospective for Radio-Canada featuring John Pizzarelli, a live July 2 telecast of the Grand Evenement General Motors special for Global Television and TV5, as well as an eight-part, one-hour series called Jazz Box, produced in association with specialty channel MusiMax. SRC’s La Chaine Culturelle, CBC Radio’s Jazz Beat and TFO are also part of this year’s broadcast package. Producers for Spectra include Touchette, Alain Simard, chairman of L’Equipe Spectra, and Luc Chatelin, exec producer and VP, television sector.

Spectra International Distribution has more than 400 hours of musical programming in its catalogue.

TV movie action at Muse

Muse Entertainment, under president Michael Prupas and production VP Irene Litinsky, is servicing three TV movie productions filming on location here in July for U.S. clients Lifetime Network, Carleton America and Animal Planet and CBS.

John Badham is directing Obsessed (aka Erotomania), a psychological drama starring Jenna Elfman (Dharma and Greg) as a completely obsessed woman. Producers are Robert Greenwald (Blonde, A Deadly Silence) and Barbara Lieberman (Till Death Us Do Part, And Never Let Her Go).

Muse provided services on two other Greenwald productions, ABC’s The Audrey Hepburn Story (2000), starring Jennifer Love-Hewitt, and Redeemer (2001), starring Matthew Modine and commissioned by USA Network.

Obsessed shoots from July 12 to Aug. 4, with STCVQ craft credits going to PM Ronald Gilbert and production designer Michel Proulx. Ron Stannett is the DOP, Lynn Raynor is supervising producer and casting is by Andrea Kenyon and Associates.

Peter Svatek will direct Scent of Murder in Montreal and region July 2-25. Scent is the dramatic story of a female police investigator and her dog, and is a major commission from Carleton and U.S. specialty channel Animal Planet. Exec producers are Stephen Davis, Gary Goldberger and Linda Ross. Litinsky is the producer. Danielle Lavoie is PM and Jean Kazemirchuk is the production designer.

A third entry, Gleason, is a biopic for CBS on the life and times (covering the period 1920-1960) of the late, great American actor and comedian Jackie Gleason (The Honeymooners). Producers are Phil Kleinbart, Barbara Lieberman and Judy Cairo. Filming goes from July 3-29 under director Howard Deutch. Department heads include DOP Neil Roach, designer Jean-Baptiste Tard, art director Emmanuel Frechette, costume designer Mariane Carter and PM Michel Chauvin.

On the content front, Chasing Cain II: Three to the Heart, a true-event police drama for CBC and Showcase Television, shoots on location in Toronto throughout July under busy director Jerry Ciccoritti (Trudeau). Prupas is exec producer, Bernie Zukerman is producer and Frank Siracusa is supervising producer. Ciccoritti also directed the CBC MOW The Many Trials of One Jane Doe, which filmed in Winnipeg in April. It’s in post and is a Canada/U.K. coproduction between Muse, Original Pictures and Studio 8.

Gerald Packer is the cinematographer on both MOWs.

Ex-Centris network expands

After years of lobbying, Montreal’s Ex-Centris operating network has been accepted into the European film network Europa Cinemas.

Created in 1992, Europa Cinemas unites 460 theatres with 1,123 screens in 268 cities. It’s mandated to increase European film programming in theatres through the promotion and distribution of national products, primarily through export.

Ex-Centris is the first operator outside the European Union and Mediterranean region to be accepted as a member, says programming director Claude Chamberlan. According to French film director Claude Miller, president of Europa Cinemas, the ‘Ex-Centris movie theatres are the most beautiful in the world.’

Since its opening in 1999, the $35-million Ex-Centris complex (three state-of-the-art, multi-format theatres seating a total of 600, as well as the revamped 600-seat Cinema du Parc repertory theatre) has emerged as the leading venue for under-programmed international and independent Canadian feature films and documentaries.

‘Distributors are being more audacious and buying all these subtitled films, which are not only [booked] for Ex-Centris but end up going to other regions in Quebec and Canada. All these relationships create partnerships on every other level, including production,’ says Chamberlan.

In related news, Ex-Centris president and founder Daniel Langlois, the founder of Softimage, has confirmed the network is expanding to include a downtown four-screen multiplex devoted to international art films. The complex will be part of a larger multimedia centre housing Le Spectrum show club, recording studios and offices. It’s slated to open in 2004 and will also house new theatres operated by Famous Players and Alliance Atlantis Cinemas.

Ex-Centris is home to this year’s 31st Montreal International Festival of New Cinema New Media (www.fcmm.com), Oct. 10-20.