Montreal: After the locker-room jollies of the hugely successful Les Boys I & II, screenwriter/director Louis Saia looks at how the other half lives in the new ‘girl-talk’ sitcom Histoires de Filles, a 22 half-hour series produced by Match tv’s Anne-Marie Hetu and Philippe Dussault.

Histoire de Filles premiered earlier this month on Reseau tva, pulling in a network high audience of 1.8 million.

Based on an original idea from the talented Saia (Le Sphinx de la banlieue, Radio Enfer, La Petite Vie, Broue) and Lise Mauffette, the show’s central characters are four middle-of-the-road, thirtysomething girlfriends. Hetu says Histoires’ humor is ‘closer to the exaggerated reality’ of the traditional North American sitcom. ‘They’re at the very end of the Gen-X [demographic] and they need multidisciplinary skills and lots of friends and support just to make it.’

Videotaping took place at Studio LaSalle under the direction of Pierre Lord, with the final three episodes slated to shoot in late March.

The ‘girls’ are Guylaine Tremblay as the mothering figure, Nathalie Malette, as the would-be writer, Catherine Lachance as the daredevil, and Marie-Chantal Perron as the suburban space-cadet mom in love with both hubby and dentist. Male cast includes the tres drole duo of Yves Pelletier and Roc Lafortune, Michel Laperriere and Benoit Gouin.

Histoires de Filles is budgeted at $2.2 million.

Distraction has international format rights but Match is holding on to remake rights for potential coproduction with English Canada and French-speaking Europe. ‘So we’re looking for a producer to do it in English for cbc or ctv,’ says Hetu.

Match is also the producer of the historical tva series Ces Enfants d’ailleurs-la suite, an eight-hour filmed drama produced for $7 million.

The house is entering feature production this year with a new project from director Andre Melancon and Films Lions Gate called Histoire de Coeur, based on a Jacques Savoie screenplay. tv projects in development include Histoires de Filles ii, a Saia/Marc Messier-scripted 2 x 2-hour miniseries, plus a tv movie suspense called Polar, with interest from tva, and the daily Canal Famille tween info/variety series, Zone de Turbulences ii.

*New starts at Cinemaginaire, SDA

New film action as reported by the stcvq in March includes two Cinemaginarie feature film coproductions, Denys Arcand’s 15 Moments and the Patrice Leconte historical drama La Veuve de St-Pierre.

15 Moments is a coproduction with Toronto producer Robert Lantos and Serendipity Point Films and France’s Cine b. Filming takes place in Cornwall, Ont. and Montreal, and in the later stages, in New York, Miami, London and Paris, says producer Denise Robert.

Guy Dufaux is the shoot’s dop. Zoe Sakellaropoulo is production designer and the pm is Michel Chauvin. Shooting goes from March 14 to early June. Alliance Atlantis Releasing will distribute.

La Veuve de St-Pierre, a coproduction with France’s Epithete Films, shoots in Louisbourg, n.s., Lac St-Jean and Paris. Eduardo Serra is the dop and Mario Hervieux is production designer. Nicole Hilareguy is the pm. Filming takes places in two blocks, March 1-9 and April 27 to June 2. Alliance Atlantis is distributing.

Leeloo Productions, French director Luc Besson’s (The Fifth Element) company, with a service assist from Allegro Film Production, will be in Montreal March 5-20 filming Frederic Garson’s contemporary feature drama The Dancer.

The 10-hour SDA Productions street drama tag began principal photography Feb. 22 and goes right through to July. Pierre Houle is directing. Ginette Hardy is pm. Michel Proulx is art director and Francois Protat (The Hunger) is the dop.

Projects on the horizon, confirmed or otherwise, include The Unconcern, a feature from Allegro and producer Richard Lowry set for an end of March start, a miniseries about Audrey Hepburn for abc and the feature film Believe, which will reunite Melenny Productions’ Richard Goudreau (Les Boys I & II) and director Robert Tinnell. Preprod is tentatively set for spring.

Speaking of horizons, actor John Travolta recently flew in on his private jet from Maine, where he has a residence, to scout potential locations for the big-budget sci-fi feature project Battlefield Earth, based on the Ron Hubbard novel. The film is set in the year 8002 and apparently some of the abandoned, industrial sites along the Lachine Canal were carefully scrutinized.

While it’s far from a done deal, Montreal film commissioner Andre Lafond says if the $135-million production lands here later this summer, it’ll be worth a cool $80 million in direct investment.

*L’Escorte scores in Paris

Director Denis Langlois’ gay feature story L’Escorte has drawn over 6,300 admissions since its release a month ago by distrib Epicentre Films in the greater Paris region. According to Langlois, the $350,000 mini-budget L’Escorte has outperformed all 1998 Quebec releases in France including L’Age de Braise, Cosmos, Liste Noire and Clandestin. ‘It’s the best showing since [Charles Biname’s] Eldorado [in early ’97],’ he says.

Produced by Productions Castor & Pollux, Langlois and producer/writer Bernard Lachance’s house, the film took in $35,000 for domestic distributor Cinema Libre.

Langlois says Paris-based Epicentre is now looking at a 35-city regional release. Cinevista in Miami has u.s. rights.

The director and Lachance have a new project which they hope to shoot this summer or fall called Danny in the Sky. The film is budgeted at $1 million, with applications going to sodec’s Independent Sector program and the new under-$1-million feature fund from Telefilm Canada (deadline April 9.)

Danny in the Sky is a ‘bilingual’ (‘Montreal reality’) movie proposal about a young man who leaves Kingston, Ont. and a career as a fashion model for Montreal and a search for an unknown father.

Danny faces a myriad of youthful trials and errors, and eventually ends up working in a male strip club.

‘It’s about the new image young men have of their own bodies, which has changed in the past 20 years,’ says Langlois.

The filmmakers are currently shopping for a distributor.

Langlois says it’s important the funding agencies realize young directors and producers need a chance to rewrite as they film. He says Quebec films budgeted in and around $1 million pay ‘union scale’ to Union des Artistes and the stcvq freelance film technicians.

Castor & Pollux is one of nine houses and film coops in recently launched Counseil quebecois des arts mediatiques, the local chapter of the Independent Film & Video Alliance.