Montreal: Exporter Filmoption International has successfully launched the 13-hour Greenspace Productions nature and wildlife expedition series Walk on the Wild Side, preselling to 147 countries. The series has sold to the 130 territories covered by Discovery International and 10 more by Discovery-Europe.

In an interview from natpe in New Orleans Jan. 25-28, producer Isabelle Marin said talks are underway on an additional 13 one-hour episodes. ‘Here at natpe we’re finalizing the u.s. broadcast, which will probably end up being one of Discovery’s affiliates. Although we do have interest from pbs, we want to stay with the Discovery family.’

Walk on the Wild Side joins volunteers and Earthwatch scientists as they discover exotic and often endangered places and animals around the world. The agenda includes the last remaining wild horses in the u.s., the cheetah of Namibia, the near-extinct desert tortoise of the Mojave, the ancient Temagami forest of Ontario, the Nile crocodile, the Macaque jungle monkeys of Sri Lanka and the great killer whales (Orca) off the coast of Washington State.

Wild Side’s production team includes editor/director Jon Kalina, directors Ole Gjerstad (Secret Stories), Phil Comeau (Secret de Jerome) and Pierre D’Amour, cinematographers Alain Daignault, Stefan Nitoslawski and Andrei Khabad, and researcher Terry Foxman (Steinberg).

Greenspace had an early ’99 delivery date but shooting only started last June. ‘We did 11 episodes by the end of September. It was crazy. I had three crews out there,’ says Marin.

Greenspace is also producing a series on Quebec’s Gaspe Peninsula titled Water & Life; a one-hour wildlife special on the thick-billed murres of Digges Sound, and a cultural doc, Goodbye…Hello, featuring dancer Karen Kain and the Netherlands’ Dan Theatre iii.

Greenspace was founded in 1992 by veteran children’s producer Paul Cadieux, head of sister company Megafun Productions. The third piece of this growing enterprise is Filmoption International.

Wild Side was produced for $3.2 million. Canadian licencees are Life Network, Tele-Quebec and tfo (tvontario).

*Insectia’s planetary attack

Groupe Pixcom has introduced an international sales division, Pixcom International, headed by sales and marketing director Franca Cerretti.

The launch received a boost with the ‘planetary’ coverage of Pixcom’s 13 half-hour doc series Insectia. The show is prelicensed by Canal d, Radio-Canada and Discovery Canada, and by La Cinquieme, France’s educational pubcaster.

Andre Barro, Pixcom exec producer and president of the international division, says Animal Planet (Discovery usa) and National Geographic in Asia, the u.k., Eastern Europe and Australia have licensed three-year windows, although the deal with Nat Geo is a ‘one-year exclusive,’ meaning new sales are expected in those markets.

First unveiled at mipcom ’96 and delivered last month, Insectia will be sold in more than 150 countries. Says Barro: ‘It’s been a long journey. With the next [round of] sales we will begin to return money to our investors.’

Insects, clearly, are the stars of Insectia. These sturdy ‘bibittes’ make up 80% of all living species and have a biomass greater than all mammals combined. The story is built using surprising analogies between insect and human behavior, with original location photography in seven territories including Malayasia, Latin and South America and the coproducing countries, Canada and France.

Insectia (www.insectia.com) has a Webzine and cd-rom game in the works and is a majority Canadian (78%) $4-million coproduction between Pixcom and France’s Cineteve and La Cinquieme. The series is produced in association with L’Insectarium de Montreal, whose tireless director/founder Georges Brossard is the show’s host.

German Gutierrez is series’ director/dop. Denis Blaquiere is principal screenwriter and Claude-Julie Parisot is the micro-cinematographer. Barro, Pixcom president Jacquelin Bouchard and Fabienne Servan-Schreiber are the exec producers.

Pixcom International is also selling the three-hour investigative doc series Killer Cults/Sectes Tueuses, which premiered on Vision tv, Canal Vie and France 2, and was a recent Silver World Medal winner at the ’99 New York Festivals.

The six one-hour historical series The French in America is in development, with its immediate fate soon to be determined. The hope is to begin filming this summer and fall.

Insectia producer Mary Armstrong (Women: A True Story) is producing The French in America.

*Handel retraces Reichmann odyssey

Documentary filmmaker and tv producer Alan Handel begins shooting Feb. 12 in Toronto on The Reichmanns: Faith and Fortune, a feature doc based on Anthony Bianco’s penetrating book The Reichmanns.

The saga retraces the ultra-orthodox family from 19th century Hungary to postwar Vienna, the flight from the Nazis to Paris and wide-open Tangiers, and the family’s emigration to Montreal and Toronto after wwii.

Handel has set up interviews with associates, experts and friends in all the places the Reichmanns lived and worked, and in New York and London where the family business Olympia and York hit the wall, losing $10 billion of somebody’s money in the earlier stages of the ruinous but mammoth East End Canary Wharf project.

The production also looks at the new generation of Reichmanns, and Paul Reichmann’s eye-opening, high-finance comeback and future development plans.

As filming begins, Handel says he’s still negotiating the participation of various family members, including Paul.

The production team includes dop Andre Khabad, editor Denis Papillon and line producer Sylvia Wilson.

The Reichmanns: Faith and Fortune is budgeted at $1.3 million and is licensed in Canada by Global Television Network and Reseau tva.

Handel (Lisa’s Journey, Nowhere Else to Live, Papoori) is developing a doc for cbc’s Witness series, Outgrowing Your Parents by 8, an examination of intellectually challenged couples and their kids.