Montreal: Two realistically portrayed but very different teenage brothers are reunited with their mom in 2 Freres, one of the season’s best new drama series.

Gabriel, played by Daniel Thomas, is a handsome country-bred 19-year-old university student less than pleased with his new life in the city. Things become even more difficult when he discovers his 15-year-old brother Zach, played by Benoit Langlois, is way over his head in all manner of dangerous delinquent behavior.

2 Freres has a limited eight-hour run on Reseau tva and so far has an enviable network average of 1.3 million viewers (Nielsen Media) after three episodes. The show is a coproduction between Jacques Blain of Cirrus Communications and producer Jocelyn Deschenes. Louis Choqette (L’Amour avec un Grand a, Bons baisers d’Amerique) is directing.

Initially developed for a 20-hour run, Blain says tva opted for 10 hours in year one, but when the project was turned down at Telefilm Canada, financing was limited to eight hours. A renewal by tva seems a strong possibility.

‘This is a project in which everybody has invested, the producers, the writers, the director, because we wanted to do it,’ says the producer.

The show has a per episode budget of $435,000, with funding from the Independent Production Fund and the Canadian Television Fund Licence Fee Program.

And while Cirrus’ fortunes are definitely on the upswing, ‘resources are stretched to the maximum,’ says Blais. ‘Things are getting more and more complicated. That’s why, like everyone else I presume, we want to develop projects for the international market. The market here is too small, we’ll just die because there’s less money every year.’

The cast features some 50 speaking roles, with Elise Guilbault as Josiane, the boys’ 42-year-old mom, Normand Chouinard as the boys’ dad, Diane Lavalle as Josiane’s best friend, Marc Beaupre as a 17-year-old gang leader and Isabelle Blais as Gabriel’s long-distance girlfriend.

The series is based on an original idea by Anne Boyer and Michel D’Astous, writers of the popular tva teleroman Le Retour and Radio-Canada’s Sous une ciel variable. Screenwriters on 2 Freres are Estelle Bouchard, Diane Cailhier, Bernard Dansereau and Annie Pierard.

dops Alain Dupras and Jean-Pierre Saint-Louis are originating on Sony Digital Video. Richard Paradis is technical director, Richard Tasse is the designer and Yves Dion is head editor. Robert Labrosse is the sound designer and Mark Gianneti composed the original music. On-set producers are Julie Guimond and veteran Rene Pothier.

Blain just hired Robin Altman as vp, development, English-language television. Altman spent the past decade managing the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival.

Altman says her mission is to start up English-track tv production aimed at the international market. ‘We’re looking at existing [Cirrus] products that have been quite successful on the French side, including Generation w, and other [French] projects in development that have the potential to be done in English as well,’ she says. ‘Ultimately, what I’d like to see is comedy/dramas, maybe sitcoms, movies-of-the-week or miniseries, but we’re also looking at some lower-risk type [specialty channel] shows to start making a name for the company, a tween series, a magazine show and a very exciting six-part docutainment show.’

Cirrus and Nicole Robert of Lux Films are currently shooting the first leg of the 26 half-hour, low-budget ($165,000) src comedy/drama La Vie, La Vie. The initial leg wraps in mid-December. Thirteen more will be taped next summer.

Cirrus’ current tv slate includes Generation w, a tween ‘game’ mag on new media and video games licensed by Canal Famille and nominated for a ’99 Alliance for Children and Television award; Fais-en ton affaire, a business magazine show on tva; and a new mag project in fast-track development for Canal Histoire.

Cirrus is involved in $8-million worth of production in ’99/2000, its share being $6 million.

*Lepage’s Possible Worlds

Filming is underway for 30 days in Montreal and the Magdalen Islands through to Nov. 21 on Robert Lepage’s first English-language movie, Possible Worlds, a coproduction between Sandra Cunningham of Toronto’s East Side Film Company and Bruno Jobin of Montreal’s In Extremis Images. Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution will release the film in Canada and the u.k. aac also has worldwide sales.

Based on the John Mighton stage play and adapted for the big screen by the playwright and Lepage (No, Le Confessional, Le Polygraphe), Possible Worlds explores the concept of parallel universes through the narrative device of a cubist love story and a more grounded, gruesome murder mystery.

Leading players include Tilda Swinton (The War Zone, Orlando), Tom McCamus (The Sweet Hereafter, Long Day’s Journey Into Night), whose character is nominally ‘dead’ as the story opens, and Sean McCann (Affliction, Naked Lunch) and Rick Miller (When Justice Fails) as two police detectives.

Earlier this summer, Cunningham and Nicole Robert of Lux Films, a Behaviour Communications company, coproduced the John L’Ecuyer feature Saint-Jude. The screenplay was by Heather O’Neill.

Originally from Montreal, with a stint in Italy prior to landing in Toronto, Cunningham says both ’99 coproductions are primarily creative deals, as opposed to financial.

‘In the case of Saint-Jude, the project came from a director from Toronto and a writer out of Montreal. So it made sense to shoot the film in the place it was written. In the case of Possible Worlds with Robert Lepage, it is exactly the opposite – the writer is from Toronto and Robert comes from Quebec.

‘I’m sure there’s a grand design here, but it is a bit of a coincidence that the two [films] happened in the same year. There needs to be an openness to ideas and talent from elsewhere in order to bring about these coproductions,’ says Cunningham.

The producer says the experience of bringing two movie projects to Quebec, although different, has underscored the progressive nature of Quebec’s cultural policy. ‘I think other provinces could take note,’ she adds.

Cunningham says the film does not rely on cgi, ‘but ingenious in-camera effects, which I think Robert Lepage has become quite known for. It’s still a naturalistic film. It’s a story that plays out in real life, albeit on different planes.’

Possible Worlds will be ready to target major film festivals by May 2000. A fall release is a possibility.

The crew includes dop Jonathan Freeman, production designer Francois Seguin (The Red Violin), costumiere Michele Hamel and picture editor Susan Shipton.

Both Freeman and Shipton are from Ontario. The post and lab will be handled in Toronto. The provincial tax credit split is determined by salary and service expenditures in each jurisdiction.

Funding for Possible Worlds comes from Telefilm Canada (Ontario envelope), sodec and TMN-The Movie Network, with the participation of cbc.

*CineGroupe develops Nadler dramas

CineGroupe has entered into a development deal with James Nadler on two original one-hour primetime drama series, Secret Society and The Avenue.

Nadler exec produced the first three seasons of the Alliance Atlantis series Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal and was the supervising producer on The Outer Limits.

In Secret Society, Samantha Freud, a female college sophomore and member of an elite secret society, is plunged into a world of supernatural horror. In The Avenue, a grizzly murder investigation is set against Montreal’s notorious biker wars, police corruption and political intrigue. Nadler exec produced The Comedy Network doc Wrestling the Past: The Mad Dog Vachon Story and earlier worked on the Tom Berry/Allegro Films sci-fi feature Screamers, directed by Christian Duguay and released in ’96 by Columbia TriStar.

Bill Gray, CineGroupe’s senior executive vp in Toronto, says Nadler will exec produce both series and assemble a full writing team once the production financing package is firmed up.

‘Nadler is originally from Montreal and is steeped in Montreal lore,’ says Gray, a former exec producer with Atlantis Films and operations director at Telefilm Canada. ‘We are in deep discussion with a particular broadcaster.’

Gray’s filmography includes the Atlantis tv movies The War Between Us, broadcast on cbc, and Heck’s Way Home, licensed to Family Channel, ctv and Showtime.

‘We are certainly maintaining our core of animation but we have a lot of things in development now that are live action,’ he says. ‘We’re developing animation here [in Toronto], too, feature films as well as primetime animated sitcoms. I’ve got an announcement on one coming soon.’

Gray says the University of Toronto has the right look for Secret Society, while The Avenue would be filmed on location in Montreal.

CineGroupe has also announced it is developing the Anne Wheeler feature film A Wilderness Station, a coproduction with Vancouver-based Gregorian Films.

The film is based on the short story by Alice Munro (The Love Of A Good Woman, Lives of Girls and Women), with Sarah Polley (Guinevere, The Sweet Hereafter) signed to play the lead role and coproduce. Set in the Canadian wilderness in the 1850s, the story unfolds as a penetrating mystery.

Gray and Charles K. Pitts (Lives of Girls and Women) are exec producing. Wheeler (Better Than Chocolate, The Sleep Room) and Pitts are the screenwriters.

Derek McGillivray is senior vp distribution with CineGroupe. The company launched its Toronto office in February.