Montreal: Blackwatch Releasing is financing the f/x- laden underworld action series Slayer: Crusaders Chronicles, which the company says will be distributed first on the Internet.

The Montreal distrib is picking up the $1-million price tag to produce and market 10 10-minute episodes of Slayer, and then plans to partner with an unnamed Toronto outfit in launching a webcasting enterprise.

Blackwatch president Bill Mariani, back from an inspirational visit to the Orlando Comic Book Festival, says revenue will come from advertising sales based on tracked e-mail addresses. ‘The beauty of what we are doing is we are going to find a target market and make [shows] for those people.’

Slayer is about a down-and-out cop and his ragtag crime-fighting outfit as they take on the vamp underground led by the centuries-old Helene, played by Victoria Silvstedt, a Swedish model and spokesperson for Guess, and certainly, no less a distinction, Yahoo’s Ms March 2000.

The show has ‘lots of action and lots of great-looking women’ and is being shot digitally by producers Kevin Woodhouse and Jason Cavalier of Action East.

After Slayers, it’ll be Slashers and two more webcast series-in-the-making, Making a Date and Chain Tape, both ‘in coproduction’ with the u.k.

As for the old model of movies in darkened theatres, Blackwatch is pleased to report Pedro Almodovar’s All About My Mother (Sony Classics) is close to the $1.2-million box-office mark in Canada.

*Roy directs ensemble romance Cafe Ole

Andrew Tarbet (Road to Avonlea), who Ficciones Films producer Pierre Laberge says ‘is the next Kevin Costner, believe me,’ and rising Spanish actress Laia Marull (Barcelona) are the stars of Richard Roy’s romance comedy Cafe Ole.

Filmed over 25 days in the west-end n.d.g. area of Montreal, Cafe Ole is an ensemble story of a young man’s relationships with neighbors and relatives and his love affair with an illegal immigrant.

The promising cast includes Stephanie Morgenstern, Dino Tavarone, Harry Standjofski, Macha Grenon, Sheena Larkin and Michelle-Barbara Pelletier. The screenplay is from former Montrealer Emil Sher.

Laberge has worked as a line producer on shows such as Tracker and Un voix en Or and says Ficciones was set up solely for the purpose of Cafe Ole. Will he try to produce more movies? He doesn’t know.

Jocelyn Dubois is the shoot’s pm, Marc Charlebois is the dop and Stravos Evangelou is the designer. J.F. Bergeron is editing at Splice and Covitec is handling 35mm lab duties. Andrea Kenyon and Associates Casting in Montreal and Stephanie Gorin are the casting agencies.

The producer says many of the stcvq techies on the shoot are working for ‘near minimum wages.’

France Film/Equinox Entertainment has Canadian and international rights. Cafe Ole is budgeted at $1.36 million and has been sold to TMN-The Movie Network and Super Ecran, with development support coming from The Harold Greenberg Fund.

*NSI, CTV pick Diversus

Diversus Productions was the only Quebec company selected last year for the National Screen Institute’s Features First Program. That support helped the two-year-old shop pitch a $2-million feature project called The Cosmonaut’s Handbook, described as a dark, contemporary comedy about a baggage handler who dreams of becoming an astronaut. Anthony Seck wrote the screenplay and is slated to direct. The goal is to film next summer, and development producer Evan Beloff says coproduction inquiries are welcome.

Following stints producing music videos (a ’99 Prix Felix for Jean Leloup’s La Vie est laide) and tv spots, Diversus’ first television network deal is the one-hour doc On Thin Ice: The History of Blacks in Hockey. It’s been sold to CBC Newsworld’s Rough Cuts, cbc’s Sports Journal, cfcf-tv and pbs. Talks on a French version are underway with Reseau des Sports and Radio-Canada.

Daniel Cross and Mila Aung-Thwin codirected, and Beloff says federal sports authorities have shown much interest in extending the material for wider distribution.

Projects in development include two likely tv series, Health Line, a medical issues talk show, and Lovestruck, on the sociology of love and relationships.

Earlier this month, Diversus started shooting in Israel on the offbeat doc Elvis – King of Jerusalem, a retracing of the King’s Jewish heritage, with additional taping scheduled this summer at Graceland. Channel Five in the u.k. is on board, with apparently five other international broadcasters knocking on the door.

Beloff is the only local producer among the 30 chosen nationally to receive a 2000 CTV Fellowship. He’ll be pitching at the Banff Television Festival, June 11-16.

Ari Cohen is Diversus’ president, Max Wallace (Who Killed Kurt Cobain?) is doc producer, and Myriam Anglade is manager.

Beloff says Marie Potvin of sodec’s Jeunes Createurs program provided tremendous support from the beginning.

*The Tunnel wraps

Shooting in Quebec City and Montreal wrapped May 12 on The Tunnel, a Quebec/Ontario tv movie coproduction between Stephen Maynard (Captive, Wanna Bet?) and Toronto producer/writer Tony Johnston (The Perfect Son, All the Fine Lines).

This action-thriller tells the story of a major-league diamond thief up on a murder charge. As the convict is transported by police on a train, all hell breaks loose when the train enters a long, dark tunnel.

Daniel Baldwin (Homicide) is directing and performing alongside Canadian ex-pat and movie bad guy Kim Coates (Auggie Rose, Battlefield Earth, Waterworld) and a bevy of local talents, including Audrey Benoit and Janine Theriault.

Craft credits go to dop Daniel Vincelette, designer Richard Tasse, post supervisor Diane Judson and casting agent Andrea Kenyon. Toronto’s MPI Productions and Medallion pfa are handling post.

Toronto-based William Alexander of Critical Mass Releasing is the distributor.

The Tunnel has been presold to TMN-The Movie Network and Super Ecran and is financed with the participation of fidec and National Bank.

*’Everybody loves this project’

Producer Barbara Shrier of Palomar and director/writer Francois Leclerc (Bientot Novembre) are prepping their very own first feature film, Une Jeune fille dans la fenetre.

‘We just love this project. We want everyone to know about it,’ says Shrier, who’s line produced many projects over the years, including The Red Violin, Babel, L’Homme ideal, Cargo and The Moderns.

The central character in this promising story set in the roaring ’20s is a young country woman who loves music and moves to the city. The project went through a full rewrite last year after a full round of rejections, but now everybody is saying yes to the $2-million script, including Telefilm Canada, sodec, the Canadian Television Fund, Super Ecran, Tele-Quebec and distrib Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm.

The shoot goes this fall in Montreal and Quebec City, where Shrier says the crew was greeted ‘just like the Americans’ by the Quebec Region (Quebec City) Film Commission. Additional scenes will be filmed in early winter.

Leclerc directed the short Petites histoires de linge sale, now in development as a tv series at Melodeum Productions, and the ’98 Golden Sheaf drama winner Les Sept branches de la riviere Ota, produced by In Extremis Images and adapted from the Robert Lepage stage play. Emmanuelle Beaugrand-Champagne is casting on Une Jeune Fille.

*Philip directs Driving Forces

A bit of a change of pace for film cinematographer Bruno Philip, who’s directing Driving Forces/ Visez dans la mille, a 13 half-hour series on the new workforce that’s been presold to Reseau tva and The Learning Channel. The $1-million series is an original proposal from Marie Gros and is being produced by Jean-Yves de Banville and Jean Huppe of Montreal’s Entreprises de Creation Panacom in association with Plurimedia Communications and Toronto producer Eileen Thalenberg, who’s handling the English version.

Philip says 39 trades and professions are profiled, among them welders, stonemasons who work with lasers, graphic artists, designers and embalmers. The show puts the accent on motivation and helping viewers update their understanding of the workplace. cart/Formula Atlantic race car driver Bertrand Godin has been asked to host on the French side.

Philip (The Second Arrival, Artificial Lies, Honey and Ashes) has penned a couple of movie screenplays in both official languages (Anton, Le Bateau) and is a specialist in cgi and digital post. He was the dop on CineGroupe’s Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2, a Canada/Germany 3D animation feature and apparently ‘the first feature film in Canada to be entirely mastered on 2K edit and digitally output onto film.’ He just wrapped the Blackwatch Productions’ suspense Nowhere in Sight, directed by Doug Jackson and starring Andrew McCarthy, Helen Slater and Chris Heyerdahl. Next up for July is Life in the Balance for Blackwatch producer Kim Berlin and director Rodney Gibbons.