Vancouver: Healthy Home – called an inspired guide to creative living – debuted Jan. 8 on hgtv as the latest in Vancouver-based Omni Film Productions’ string of information series.

The 26-part, half-hour series also airs on Discovery Health in the u.s.

Host Tamara Stanners explores the whole spectrum of ‘health’ – be it physical, mental, emotional or spiritual – within the context of home, a concept that might mean everything from shelters, to havens, neighborhoods, communities and planet Earth. That means stories about gardening, decorating, architecture, design, health, family, lifestyle choices, community activism and living harmoniously with nature.

Each weekly episode showcases ideas and strategies to make our surroundings healthier. Personality profiles highlight people with unique ways to enhance their environments.

Omni also produces Champions of the Wild and Quiet Places. Previously it produced Hi-Tech Culture.

*Trickle or tickle?

Could be the u.s. networks and studios are getting nervous about writer and actor walkouts. Could be they’ll be stocking up between now and June and eventually make local crews run-off-their-feet. But the British Columbia Film list doesn’t show any evidence of that – yet.

New projects include Hellraiser: Hellseeker, an independent, low-budget u.s. thriller from l.a.-based Neo Art & Logic, the same people who did Corn 2001, a sequel to the Children of the Corn suspense franchise, in Vancouver last month.

Actors Joe Mantegna and Eric Roberts headline the a&e television movie Walking Shadow. In production until Feb. 9, Walking Shadow is based on the novel of the same name by Robert B. Parker and is a mystery in the style of Dashiell Hammett about an actor shot while performing a political play.

And nbc teen series Just Deal is back for another 13 half-hours. Production runs until April 23.

*Good deeds

Coming Home Films, based on Mayne Island, has completed the third installment of its six-part Voyagers of the Heart series for Knowledge Network about extraordinary Canadians and their acts of compassion.

Ratanak’s Legacy is the story of Brian McConaghy, an rcmp ballistics expert and forensic investigator. Since 1990, he has traveled twice yearly to Cambodia, bringing medical aid to people throughout the country, often at risk to his life. Legacy, which is directed and produced by Beverley Reid, with Peter Kellington as dop, will air in the spring.

The series began with A Man Called Bob, about a Richmond high school principal who has dedicated his life to increasing the opportunities for young people to understand the developing world.

The second installment, which won the Silver Crown Award for best picture under $100,000 at the International Visual Media Festival in New Orleans, is The Road to Bansi and focuses on elderly nurse and theologian Jean Buchan, who works as a medical missionary in rural India.

Reid and Kellington will be leaving home again soon to shoot the final three episodes in Honduras, Nicaragua and Vietnam.

*Made here, shown there – first

Chum Television has bought the rights to air in Canada the 22 one-hours of The Immortal from Vancouver’s Peace Arch Entertainment. The series, with Lorenzo Lamas as the hero struggling against the forces of darkness, will debut on chum’s Ontario stations before it premiers on Space: The Imagination Station this spring.

Diane Boehm, chum’s director of independent production, calls the action-adventure show ‘fun and campy.’

*Famous last words

Last Summer, an mow by Victoria’s Hillary Jones-Farrow of the May Street Group, debuted on the cbc Dec. 28.

Based on the apocalyptic short story Until the Eye Catch Fire by Victoria writer PK Page, the television adaptation tells the story of an elderly woman and her dog in the final months of life on Earth. Governor General Award-winning Page, at 84, plays the woman who begins to see visions of another plane of existence as ours dies out.

Russian-born director Anna Tchernakova (Sea and Stars), who emigrated to Canada in 1994, combines live-action drama, computer art enhancement and documentary concert performance in putting together the story and the woman’s vivid visions.

British composer Gavin Bryars contributes music and leads musicians from The Victoria Conservatory of Music are featured in the opening sequence.

The mow will also be seen on Vision tv and Bravo!.

*Going Dutch

Rainmaker Digital Pictures has established a strategic partnership with Amsterdam-based post house Valkieser Capital Images. The goal is to provide international coproductions a joint service package.

‘Canadian/European coproductions are on the increase and we felt this would be a good way to help our clients solve some of the challenges of coproduction,’ says Rainmaker president Bob Scarabelli.

The new partners will work out logistics and technical issues between them so producers can concentrate on more important issues, he adds.

*Five with drive

The annual Kick Start program – by the b.c. office of the Directors Guild of Canada and British Columbia Film – has named the latest five aspiring short film directors to get funding. Winners in 2001 of $12,000 in production budgets, $1,200 in credit toward post services at Rainmaker Digital Pictures and the advice of mentors are:

* Kevin Eastwood – Dents in the Sky. An art student realizes he has a place in the world. (Trent Carlson, mentor)

* Garry Wallace – Detour. An elderly couple re-evaluate themselves and their empty lifestyle. (Fredrik Thorsen, mentor)

* Craig Wallace – Good Morning. What should you do when God chooses you? (Jonathan Tammuz, mentor)

* Cyndi Mason and Tina Overbury – Spaghetti. A silent adaptation of Sergio Leon’s classic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. (John Greyson, mentor)

* Jessica Bradford – The Telescope. A telescope changes a girl’s life. (Stuart Margolin, mentor)

The application deadline for Kick Start 2002 is Sept. 5 (www.dgcbc.com).

*Happy birthday

Knowledge Network, b.c.’s educational broadcaster, turned 20 on Jan. 12. Since its first signals were freed from a basement studio at the BC Institute of Technology, Knowledge has produced original, award-winning information programs such as Dotto’s Data Cafe, BC Yachts and Yards, KidZone Live and BC Moments.

All grown up and on its own, Knowledge boasts three studios, editing and post facilities, and live-to-air control rooms.

Knowledge, a division of the Open Learning Agency, reaches 100% of b.c. households and has an average weekly audience of one million viewers.