Vancouver: u.s. specialty channel VH1 is embarking on its first movie project with Sweet Water, an mow to shoot in Vancouver May 25 to June 18.

Amy Jo Johnson (Felicity) stars in the story about the search for the musical band Sweet Water, which kicked off the Woodstock Festival in the 1960s. The story involves a present-day researcher hunting down the story of what happened to the band in the intervening years.

Another first timer to b.c. is Pax tv, which will air Hope Island, presently stationed in Britannia Beach, north of Vancouver. The 13-episode series for Lions Gate tv and Paramount Distribution is about a new minister in a small fishing village. It’s described as Touched by an Angel meets Northern Exposure. The series features a cast of Canadian leads including Torontonians Cameron Daddo and Suki Kaiser.

* Other U.S. shoots

For Disney, H-E-Double Hockeysticks is an mow about an apprentice devil who is dispatched to the human realm to win the soul of a star hockey player.

The comedy stars Will Friedle and Matt Lawrence, both from Boy Meets World, and will air on The Wonderful World of Disney program. Production in Vancouver runs until May 28.

In the tnt mow Deadlocked, tv star Charles Dutton (Roc) takes on the u.s. justice system as the father of a wrongfully accused young man. When Dutton takes a jury hostage to force the issue, investigator David Caruso (NYPD Blue) is forced into action. Production is set to begin May 31.

Breaking Point is an nbc mow about road rage and its effects on a family. No cast was locked in at press time, but the l.a.-based director is Deran Sarafian who has done recent episodes of Fantasy Island and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It, too, begins production May 31.

* Christian Bruyere’s Such a Good Boy

Producer Christian Bruyere has won the funding sweepstakes and will be able to go ahead with his biopic Scorn, which is based on Lisa Hobb Birnie’s book Such a Good Boy and is made for the cbc. eip, lfp and British Columbia Film are all aboard.

The $3.25-million project – about the life of Darren Huenemann who masterminded the murder of his mother and grandmother in 1990 to gain access to insurance money – goes into production in September.

Bruyere’s company Face-to-Face Films is the lead producer in partnership with Kinetic Productions, Eurasia Motion Pictures and Barna-Alper Productions. Sturla Gunnarsson (Such a Long Journey) will direct.

Bruyere, as producer of Omni Films’ nature series Champions of the Wild, is also celebrating two awards given to the series by the International Film and Video Festival in Chicago. Episodes on tigers and elephants each won Gold Camera Awards, beating productions created for Discovery u.s. and National Geographic. Prizes are to be handed out during the Chicago festival June 4.

* In the Cannes

Short-film writer/director Mark Sawers’ new 13-minute effort Shoes Off! will be one of seven shorts to screen during the International Critic’s Week program at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.

A romantic comedy, Shoes Off! features local actors David Lewis and Deanna Milligan in a story about a lonely bachelor who is inspired by a mysterious woman and her black boots. The film features a score by Don Macdonald and is produced by Leah Mallen, a new enrollee at the Canadian Film Centre.

Sawer’s previous short Stroke was included in the Cannes program in 1993 and his follow-up Hate Mail was in the 1994 Berlin International Film Festival. Shoes Off! completes the trilogy for Sawers, who also directs episodes of Shadowraiders and Beasties for Vancouver’s Mainframe Entertainment.

* Wait and see

As the calendar flipped into May, the resident u.s. series were still waiting for green lights from the various backers, says the B.C. Film Commission. On tenterhooks are shows like Millennium, The Crow, Sentinel and Viper. And recent pilots have had no better luck eliciting confirmed go-aheads. Among the candidates are Harsh Realm, Wonder Cabinet and Masters of Horror and Suspense.

* No more free money

In the last quarter (ended March 31) before the rules changed from a grant system to an equity investment system, British Columbia Film signed contracts worth $1.63 million with 51 b.c. projects. In all, 40 hours of new programming were created.

Among the projects enjoying the last free production money are: animal series Champions of the Wild (Omni Films), comedy series Double Exposure (Soapbox Productions), Tibetan refugee documentary Forgotten Exiles (Luna Pictures), forensic science doc The Gene Squad (Raincoast Storylines), romantic comedy feature A Girl is a Girl (Femme Film), action feature The Guardian (Guardian Productions), youth violence doc Harm’s Way (Vidatron Entertainment), hockey doc Ice Time for Old Guys (Avanti Pictures), and Life and Times of Christine Silverberg (Force Four Entertainment).

Other projects are: women’s monument doc Marker of Change (May Street Group), dating doc Mating Calls in the Urban Jungle (Amazon Communications), family crisis doc A Mother’s Son (Gumboot Productions), feature-length drama Rollercoaster (Rollercoaster Productions), Bigfoot doc Sasquatch Odyssey (Big Hairy Deal Films), doc Sheldon Kennedy: A Story of Human Courage (International Documentary tv), comedy single Spaced Out (Slightly Bent Entertainment), comedy doc Stand Up Safari (Pan Video Productions), dance doc Unruly Body (Jordan-Bastow Productions), doc Valentine’s Day: A Brief History of Romantic Love and Lust (Insight Film & Video), series Virtues – A Family Affair (May Street Group), and docudrama You, Me & The Kids – Teen Violence Special (Force Four).

* Another local indie

The Water Game, another Vancouver low-budget feature that owes its existence to the advent of digital video technology, goes into production May 20 to June 20. Among the local actors in the cast are Kaj Erik Eriksen (The Commish), Rochelle Greenwood, Ben Eberhard, Dawn C. Perkins and Edmond Wing.

First-time feature film producer Andrea Fehsenfeld says the action-drama story involves high school students who spend a life-altering three weeks playing the mysterious Water Game.

The director is John Bolton and cinematography will be handled by Kevin Eastwood.

The producers are talking to distributors and no festival schedule has yet been determined.