New Brunswick-based filmmaker and academic Barry Cameron has a full dance card for 2000, which suits him just fine. The Cinefile producer and University of New Brunswick professor has no less than three features in development.

The first project, and the one closest to his heart for the moment, is called Rust Kings, and is about a group of factory workers who are about to lose their jobs. The workers, who play together in an industrial hockey league, rely on each other and the game they love to pull them through the ordeal. Cameron says that if he had to equate the film to something it would be, ‘Les Boys meets The Full Monty.’

Cinefile will be credited as the production company on Rust Kings, with Toronto’s Cinema Esperanca attached as distributor. The film will be funded via an equity investment by Film New Brunswick, a distribution advance from Esperanca, broadcast licences with Superchannel and TMN-The Movie Network and tax credits. Cameron projects a budget of approximately $1.2 million.

The producer reports chances are very good that Rust Kings’ writer John McFetridge (a New Brunswick-basedwordsmith) will either direct or codirect. He says one of the next steps will be to fill the 33 speaking roles on the ensemble-driven comedy/drama. What he is looking for first and foremost are ‘actors who can really play hockey.’

Cameron says of the project, ‘Rust Kings is just a good-quality Canadian film, something beyond the commercial level because it has that little politically serious subject in it, but it is done with sophistication and comedy.’

Cameron is hoping production on Rust Kings will begin in Fredericton this March.

The other two projects in the works with Cinefile are Terminal Delay and Ernie: Guardian of Evil. Both projects are to be financed through presales with foreign distributors, both have been penned by the very busy McFetridge and both are expected to have budgets in the $3-million range.

Terminal Delay is set in the dead of winter in an airport hotel where two American hitmen are waiting to take out a man coming in from Europe. Little do they know that in the hotel room right next to them are Canadian special agents ready to pick up the same passenger. Cameron calls the film a thriller with a very comedic dimension to it.

Ernie: Guardian of Evil is a family film about some teenage outcasts who have to hide in their school library to avoid getting beaten up by the jocks. In the library they discover and open a mysterious tomb, which unleashes a gaggle of little creatures from hell.

‘I think Ernie will appeal to a big market,’ says Cameron, who adds he ‘exhausted Blockbuster’s family section in one weekend. I have pity for parents who go to video stores and can’t find anything they can watch [with their family]. There isn’t that much stuff out there.’

Cameron’s other job is as the director of the film program at the University of New Brunswick. He reports that he is hoping to launch a film certificate program for the university in the fall, with 30 hours of credit that can count toward a degree. He says the program, if implemented, will feature credit courses in acting/directing and screenwriting, as well as the existing film studies courses. The emphasis will be on having students gain practical experience through the course and then in the field.

‘The people that come out of it won’t just be production techies,’ says Cameron. ‘The film industry will be extremely pleased by the program because you know that these people who come out of it will have done quite a bit.’

Cameron adds the program could also do a lot specifically for the Atlantic film community. ‘It will provide that training component that is vital for growing an embryonic industry such as the one in New Brunswick,’ he says. ‘It’s one thing to have training for crews, but if you don’t nurture that creative infrastructure – the writers, directors, producers – all you’re doing are suitcase films from away. You have to grow your own product too.’

*New Founde Land

Producer Barbara Doran says she is hoping the Canada/Ireland coproduction of Random Passage will finally be ready to begin shooting at the beginning of March in Newfoundland.

The interprovincial and international coproduction has a reported budget of $16 million, with partners Passage Films (representing Newfoundland, with Doran and Jennice Ripley producing), Cite-Amerique (representing Quebec, with Lorraine Richard producing) and Subotica (representing Ireland, with Tristan Lynch producing).

The series of eight one-hours (a limited series) is being funded by Telefilm Canada, the Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation, sodec, the Cable Production Fund, distribution advances, and tax credits, with money coming in from Ireland as well. It will be aired nationally on cbc.

The series is based on a pair of books by Newfoundland author Bernice Morgan – Random Passage and Waiting for Time. It examines Newfoundland in the early 1800s, when the province was populated by many exiles from Ireland and England, some of whom created new lives for themselves in the ‘New Founde Land.’

Adapted from the novels for television by screenwriter Des Walsh, Random Passage will be directed by John N. Smith. The two collaborated on The Boys of St. Vincent.

Meantime, Doran is currently in the research and development phase on a two-part documentary called Homicide. The two one-hour doc is being backed in the r&d phase by the National Film Board and is based on the work of Newfoundland anthropologist Elliot Leyton.

Nielsen hosts TV comedy

canadian thespian Leslie Nielsen, best known for his comedic work in the Naked Gun films, has apparently expressed an interest in gracing the Canadian small screen and may get his chance in the Liography series from Halifax-based Creative Atlantic Communications.

Currently in development with ctv, Liography is a half-hour comedy series based on a&e’s Biography, but will focus more on fictitious characters who may or may not be based on actual news-makers. Creative Atlantic’s Janice Evans says Telefilm Canada and the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation will likely be called on for backing. Some private investors, distributor advances and tax credits may also be utilized.

Head writer for the series will be Ian Johnston, whose body of work includes the satirical autobiography Death by Television and a television column for Halifax’s Daily News. He is currently a writer for cbc’s Street Cents. No directors have been named, but Nielsen, says Evans, is excited about the project.

‘He was the first person we thought of as the host,’ says Evans. ‘We knew he has a soft spot for doing some Canadian projects and I think the timing was right. He’s completely keen.’

Evans also foretells of a half-hour drama currently in development with ctv called First and Lasts. The project, written and to be directed by Michael Amo, is about a young musician, fresh out of jail and with a new baby, who is forced to make a decision between going legit as a musician or going back to a life of crime with his old partner. Meanwhile, he needs some fast cash before 5 p.m. to pay first and last month’s rent or his nasty landlord will throw him and his family out on the street.

To finance First and Lasts, Evans says all of the same venues mentioned for Liography will be tapped. She projects a budget of approximately $360,000 for the project.

*Film fest blossoms

Some early rumblings from the East Coast on the subject of the 20th Atlantic Film Festival will be coming Jan. 22 at the aff general meeting. The festival’s executive director Gordon Whittaker says some changes and initiatives will be implemented to further raise the profile of the blooming festival.

‘Certainly, the festival in the last three years has been gaining some pretty significant attention and exposure, and our delegates are really loving it here,’ says Whittaker. ‘[This year], we want to build on that and also celebrate how we got here.’

The 1999 edition of the festival saw an attendance increase of 17% and a 35% rise in gross box-office revenue, generated in part by 19 sold-out screenings and events. Also in 1999, film and video submissions rose 35%.

The 20th Atlantic Film Festival will be held in Halifax from Sept. 22 to 30.

*Correction

In the Nov. 29 Atlantic Scene, the animated special from Collideascope Digital Productions referred to as Always Under the Bed Adventures is actually called Ollie’s Under The Bed Adventures.