Montreal: Cirque du Soleil and TVA Group have announced a wide-ranging strategic partnership to produce international tv projects, which tva president and ceo Daniel Lamarre says could quickly add up to $25 million.

Lamarre along with TVA International president Andre Provencher and Cirque du Soleil Images managing director Peter Wagg worked out the deal over several months, culminating in an announcement in Santa Monica, Calif., Oct. 22.

The program lineup includes an international variety series, slated to start production as early as next spring; a slate of one-hour Cirque documentaries; mows; and an animation series, The Children of Cirque du Soleil (working title), to be produced in association with Granada Media Group of the u.k.

‘We are now looking for a partner (including a Canadian animation studio) to join us in the series,’ says Wagg.

Wagg says Cirque’s multimedia assets include a world-traveling casting department, some 6,000 audition tapes and seven touring shows on three continents, ‘if my geography is correct.’

The first tv movie will be based on the life and times of Sylvie Frechette, Olympic synchronized swimming champion and coach/ artistic director with ‘O’, the Cirque’s permanent aquatic spectacle in Las Vegas.

Cirque du Soleil Images and Wagg will handle conception, development and creative control, with TVA International and Provencher overseeing financing and production. International distribution is subject to negotiation.

Based in Montreal, Wagg is a former exec with Pearson Television and Chrysalis Recording, a cocreator on the landmark Max Headroom series – currently broadcast on Bravo! – and manager since 1997 of Cirque’s audiovisual and recording projects, including the imax 3D film Journey of Man, the feature film Algeria and the tv special Quidam.

‘The branding of the Cirque is so important we’ve had to guarantee the level of quality the Cirque is accustomed to,’ says Lamarre. ‘In the months since we have worked together we’ve developed a great team spirit, and that’s important.’

Dralion, the Cirque’s latest extended u.s. show tour, opened last month in Santa Monica.

*Add two to Cinequest

Cinequest Films producer Shimon Dotan, in association with l.a.-based Moonstone Entertainment, is producing two feature films this fall, Marc S. Grenier’s Cause of Death, starring Patrick Bergin (Patriot Games, Sleeping with the Enemy) in the role of a haunted district attorney who falls for a beautiful murder suspect, and Rodney Gibbons’ Slow Burn, starring Pam Grier (Mars Attack, Escape from l.a.) as an acid-tongued maverick cop up against a demonic corporate conspiracy.

A courtroom drama scripted by Les Weldon (Free Fall, Point of Impact), Cause of Death, which also features Joan Severance, Maxim Roy and Michael Ironside, began a four-week shoot in Montreal Oct. 22. Slow Burn also stars Romano Orzari (Omerta iii, The List) and was written by Terry Abrahamson (The Black Box, How Blue Can You Get?). It begins principal photography Nov. 24 for five weeks.

Moonstone is the u.s. and international sales agent. France Film is distributing in Canada. Both films are budgeted in the $5 million range.

‘We are aiming at the big screen,’ Dotan said in an interview from New York. ‘I develop the scripts and bring them to a phase where we can promote sales based on script, cast and the director, and together with Moonstone we have the amount of presales we need in order to generate a bank loan to shoot the film.’

The Cinequest team includes producers Nataya Anbar (Dotan’s partner), Renaud Mathieu and Erica Stern; pm Martha Fernandez; dops Yves Belanger on Cause of Death and Bert Tougas on Slow Burn; art director Jacqueline Trenta; and casting agency Barbara Casting.

Grenier’s credits include two Saban tv movies, Fallen and Fatal Affair. Gibbons directed Artificial Lies for Saban International, Owd Bob, distributed in the u.s. by Disney, and Little Men, picked up by wb.

Dotan wrote and directed the Israeli commando thriller Repeat Drive and the Berlin Silver Bear winner The Smile of the Lamb. He also directed and produced the ensemble piece You Can Thank Me Later. This year, he produced the English remake of the Sylvain Guy thriller The List, which Motion International will distribute in Canada early next year.

*Telefiction grows French connection

Films Vision 4’s first feature coproduction is Une Petite Fete, a $4.3-million romance drama coproduced with Rendez-Vous Productions of France and Banana Films of Belgium. Producers are Claude Veillet and Jacques Bonin of Films Vision 4 (Telefiction’s feature film unit), Catherine Burniaux of Banana and Francois Charlent of Rendez-Vous.

Scripted and directed by Chris Vander Stappen of Belgium, screenwriter on Ma Vie en Rose, Une Petite Fete is set in 1969 and tells the story of a young woman who leaves behind a repressive family for Montreal and university medical studies. Not only does she lose interest in becoming a doctor, but she falls in love with a Quebecoise woman, deciding everything must be kept secret from the family.

French actress Marie Bunel is the film’s lead. Quebec actors include Macha Grenon, Emmanuel Bilodeau, Jacques Lavallee, Mario Saint-Amand and stand-up comic Marie-Lise Pilote.

Sylvie Roy is the pm, Normandin Sarrazin is art director and Jacinthe Demers is the costume designer.

Telefiction has a 49% share in Paris-based Rendez-Vous, and this summer serviced two Fred et Tom tv movies shot for TF1 in Quebec over 33 days.

Veillet, chairman of Telefiction, says the Fred et Tom shoot represented $1 million in local salaries. Telefiction made an initial startup investment in Rendez-Vous and Veillet says it’s starting to pay off: tv movie orders have come in from France 2 and M6 and other projects are pending, including projects with Canal+.

Une Petite Fete’s foreign leg (in Brussels) started Oct. 18 and goes for 33 days. Films Lion Gate is the Canadian distrib.

Telefiction, including Films Vision 4, has produced close to $10 million this year. Rendez-Vous’s top line is in the order of $7 million. Shows include 65 15-minute episodes of the multiple Prix Gemeaux preschool tele-series Cornemuse (Tele-Quebec), the Canal Vie mag Vivre a Deux, and the holiday family movie Pin Pon, le film. The house is prepping two series in time for the Jan. 10 specialty channel launch, Entrepreneur for Canal Histoire and Mathematica for technology channel Canal z.