Montreal: Box-office expectations are high for the teen vampire comedy Karmina II: L’Enfer de Chabot. The new Gabriel Pelletier (La Vie Apres l’Amour) film, simply called K2, is in post and editing after a heavy 36-day shoot. Yves Pelletier wrote the screenplay and Nicole Robert of Go Films produced on a $4.1-million budget. The movie’s exec producers are Guy Gagnon and Patrick Roy of distrib Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm. A major Quebec-wide release is set for Friday, July 13.

Each day of the shooting schedule involved several long, two- and three-hour makeup and costume sessions, and many of the actors had to be outfitted for both big and small wire pulley-rigs for their flying vampiric escapades, says Robert.

In this sequel, largely set in a milieu of smalltime crooks and con artists, the vamp crowd stays cool until one of their lot is booted out by his old lady and the essential potion provision runs dry.

Leading players include Pelletier, Gildor Roy, Diane Lavallee as a sweet little housewife who decides to check out the night life, Robert Brouillette, Sylvie Leonard, Isabelle Cyr in the role of Karmina, Julien Poulin (Elvis Gratton II: Miracle a Memphis) as a gangster and the talented Michel Courtemanche (The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne) as his flunky collaborator, Ti-Pit.

Craft credits go to supervising producers Elizabeth Gimber and Geoff Patenaude, dop Daniel Villeneuve, art director Michel Proulx, costumiere Denis Sperdoulkis, and makeup and hair artists Nicole Lapierre, Mario Soucy and Rejean Forget. Gaetan Huot (The Red Violin) is the editor. Physical effects are from L’Intrigue, with Big Bang FX/Animation producing the digital fx. Post and lab duties are by Global Vision/Deluxe Laboratories.

Telefilm Canada, sodec and broadcasters Groupe tva, Super Ecran and TMN-The Movie Network are among the investors.

Robert also coproduced the new Claude Miller psychological thriller l’Histoire de Betty, featuring Quebec actors Luke Mervil and Yves Jacques, a minority coprod picked up by Vivafilm.

New projects include two first-time features – Richardo Trogi’s Quebec-Montreal and Eric Tessier’s Sur le seuil, a supernatural thriller adapted from the Patrick Senecal novel.

Robert’s partners in Go Films are director Pelletier and Richard Speer and Jacques Langlois of commercial production house Jet Films.

Hip-hop montrealaise

montreal is a growing center for the still largely underground hip-hop scene, according to Patricia Chica and Yanick Letourneau. The young filmmakers directed, shot and edited the new tvontario doc short 514-50 Hip Hop, produced by Letourneau’s Peripheria Productions. The doc considers the origins of (French-track) rap and hip hop in Montreal, starting in the early 1990s, and tries to figure why established media isn’t paying much attention.

Artists profiled include Yvon Kreve, J. Kyll of Muzion, DL Blast, Unknown Nation and the dance outfit Tactical Crew.

514-50 Hip Hop is part of a tvo series on urban youth culture and preems at this year’s Rendez-vous du cinema, with a Feb. 24 screening at Cinema onf.

Chica (La Promesse) is shooting a one-hour doc on rocker-poet Lucien Francoeur (Nancy Beaudoin) for Musimax’s Musicographie series. Letourneau received a Golden Sheaf Award nomination for cinematography for the Isaac Isitan social doc Gangs: la loi du la rue.

One Way Out

producer Andre Paquette of Chariot Communications and director Alan Goldstein (Dorian, 2001 – A Space Travesty) started filming Feb. 12 on the pay-premium suspense movie One Way Out.

Chariot holds North American rights – a Canadian sale is pending – while Munich, Germany-based Promark, recently merged with Das Works, has international and is the $6.4-million film’s principal financier.

In this story, Harry Woltz, an otherwise decent homicide detective with a secret addiction played by James Belushi (The Little Shop of Horrors), runs up a big-time gambling debt with two thuggish brothers, owners of a swank nightspot. With an offer to cancel the debt, the thugs approach Harry with a double-dealing scheme to bump off the club’s third partner, Evans Farrow, a promiscuous but basically good babe played by Guylaine St-Onge.

Also starring are Jack Langedijk in the role of Evans’ no-good husband and Romano Orzari as a Mafia character. The producer says he was especially impressed with Orzari’s work on the Motion International mob story Omerta iii and hopes to work with the talented actor on future projects.

The stcvq film crew includes dop Sylvain Brault and art director Charles Boulay. Helene Boulay is the line producer. Nadia Rona of Elite Productions is handling casting.

Paquette has 20 years experience as a distrib and acquisition executive, notably with Film Circuit and Allegro Film Distribution. "Being a buyer for Canada is similar to being a buyer in other almost non-existent markets, like Australia and New Zealand, and is one of the most difficult jobs in the business," says Paquette.

Paquette was a producer on the Kiefer Sutherland thriller After Alice, another Promark-bankrolled feature shot in Toronto last year.

One Way Out shoots for 25 days through to March 16.

Kierans is getting closer

director/writer Jennifer Kierans is getting closer to her goal of directing a feature film with her latest dramatic short, Soother. The 23-minute film is produced by Day Job Productions in association with Soma Productions. The film, about two 11-year-olds whose friendship is tested when "the new girl" arrives, "explores how cruel little girls can be," says Kierans. The filmmaker won praise for her work on the short The Rogers Cable, an official selection at the Cannes Critics Week in ’98.

The new generation of stars in Soother includes Arlen Aguayo-Stewart, Genevieve Farrell, Alisha Kaz and Danielle Dube. Mature cast includes Claudia Ferri as mom and reformed Canadian comic Mike MacDonald in the role of Mr. Renolds. The dop is Marc Charlebois and original music is by Alain Auger.

Kierans and Joelle Bourjolly, alums of both Concordia University and the Canadian Film Centre, produced, with funding from Canada Council for the Arts – Media Arts, sodec’s Jeunes Createurs program, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec, and a licence from the Women’s Television Network.

CineGroupe@MILIA

an extended Mega Babies and the new-breed 3D action story Apocrypha, two new game projects from CineGroupe Interactive, were among 40 jury-selected product exhibitions at The Game Developer Village at this year’s milia market in Cannes, France, Feb. 10-14.

Based on the successful animated series, Mega Babies is a single-player, 2D action-shooting "gross-out" with 15 to 20 hours of adrenaline-pumped game play, along with music, voice and f/x outtakes from the tv show. Apocrypha is described as a cyber-punk adventure where renegade players trapped in the empyreal city of Nexus try to survive long enough to solve the riddle of their own existence.

Telefilm Canada hosted seven of 30 Canadian companies active at milia, including Dreamcatcher Interactive and Women Wise, both of Toronto; IB Web, Nanouk Multimedia and Strategy First of Montreal; and Sarbakan of Quebec City. A Team Canada delegation made up of reps from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade stationed in eight European countries were also present at the new media market. *