Montreal: Filmmakers Maureen Marovitch and David Finch of Picture This Productions are about two-thirds through When Two Won’t Do, a feature-length documentary on people seeking alternatives to monogamy.

‘We have the idea of doing three aspects of non-monogamy,’ says Finch. ‘We’ve done swinging, the polyamory culture, and now we’re doing cheating, which is the most common form of non-monogamy.’

The producers are actively seeking a theatrical distributor as well as broadcaster interest.

The team spent time at the recent Loving More conference in Upstate New York and in July were in Las Vegas for Lifestyles ’98, a swingers convention attended by over 4,000 people ‘interested in spousal swaps and recreational sex.’

Finch says the scene at the circus-like Vegas get-together ‘was like stepping into an adult movie, but with the stars being your typical next-door neighbors – paramedics, lawyers and school teachers.’

It should be ready for fall ’99 and has received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and sodec.

Marovitch and Finch are also shooting a one-hour doc on turn-of-the-century Quebec strongman Louis Cyr and a profile of adventurer/writer Steve Roberts called Technomadness.

Louis Cyr: The Strongest Man on Earth is exec produced by Patricia Phillips and is slated for the History Television biography series The Canadians (aka Faces of History). The producer is Edmonton’s Great North Productions.

Years ago, adventurer Roberts traveled across the u.s. on a high-tech recumbent bicycle. For his latest adventure he’s built a space-age solar and human-powered boat to tour the world’s oceans. The totally wired vessel is linked to the Internet and Roberts will be documenting the trip.

‘We’re shooting it on spec at the moment, but we think it’s a great discovery/travel concept about a crazy, affable and truly mad scientist,’ says Marovitch. The completion date is spring 2000.

‘It just so happens that what is [going on] is what we are interested in and find really fascinating,’ says Finch, an active member of the CIFC Quebec chapter.

*Feature ambitions for Rosenthal

Winner of the $10,000 Super Ecran award for best short film script at the ’98 Rendez-vous du cinema quebecois, Sylvie Rosenthal’s La Bombe au Chocolate has now won a Silver Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival, Oct. 8-22. It’s also going to the Shorts International Film Festival in New York City Nov. 9-11, and in all has been invited to 15 festivals.

The young director says the Local Heroes festival in Edmonton ‘is probably my favorite.’

Rosenthal is using the Super Ecran money to write a draft for a first feature, a comedy/drama with a social spin.

‘There’s less and less money [at the funding institutions] so things have to open up somewhere else,’ says Rosenthal, who would like to see a return of the ’80s tax shelter, or at least some sort of renewed mechanism for private investment in films.

In Bombe au Chocolat, a character played by Pascale Monpetit (Le Coeur de poing) invents a dessert called The Chocolate Bomb and subsequently meets a writer at a vernissage who helps her gain an understanding of her ‘true nature.’

The 35mm film cost $59,000, with an additional $35,000 in donated services, and was released in theaters by Lions Gate Films.

Rosenthal, who has a law degree, got her start as a camera assistant and was a student at the Prysm Playhouse in New York.

She’s looking for episodic tv work and recently signed on as a director with Michel Sarao’s commercial house Les Films Figaro.

*@ctiONFilm

The French Program of the National Film Board has launched a cyberspace newsletter under the header @ctiONFilm. The online publication complements general information on the board’s 10,000-title catalogue and is primarily aimed at the many schools and institutions which use nfb pedagogical resources.

The newsletter is available at www.onf.ca/actionfilm.

*Tree chronicles dancer Gillis

Margie Gillis: Inside Out is a performance piece on the life and work of the renowned dancer/choreographer from Montreal director Tanya Ballantyne Tree.

The film was shot over 15 months and includes highlights of Gillis’ season at New York’s Joyce Theatre and a more intimate session at Salt Spring Island in b.c. filmed this past August.

Tree produced through her own house, Pax Productions, and shared the project with daughter Josephine Mackay, who coproduced and coscripted. Martin Duckworth is the cinematographer. Lewis Cohen is editing.

Margie Gillis: Inside Out/De l’Interieur is being edited in three versions and premiers on Global-Quebec in December. Montreal’s cfcf-tv, scn in Saskatchewan and Canal d are the other licencees. Funding comes from Telefilm Canada, the Canadian Television Fund Licence Fee Program and Rogers Telefund.

Active with the cifc’s Quebec chapter, Tree’s filmography includes The Things I Cannot Change, Nurses: The Heart of the System and the irresistible Prostate Cancer: The Male Nightmare.

*Villeneuve win at Namur

Denis Villeneuve’s Un 32 Aout sur Terre has won the top film prize at the 13th Festival International du Film Francophone in Namur, Belgium.

Villeneuve’s film edged out two prominent French movies in competition at Namur, Francois Ozon’s Sitcom and the latest Claude Miller film, La Classe de neige. The young filmmaker has a new feature project in development with Max Films.

Un 32 Aout is slated for theatrical release by distributor France Film on Oct. 23.

*Sony, LGF release Filmline fare

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the Canada/Ireland feature coproduction This Is My Father for u.s. distribution. ‘We financed the film without a u.s. deal and we think Sony is going to do a tremendous job,’ says the film’s producer Nicolas Clermont, president of Filmline International.

A limited simultaneous North American release, with Behaviour Distribution distributing in Canada, is set for April 1999.

A $13.5-million period romance coproduced with Hummingbird of Dublin, the film features the prominent moviemaking Quinn brothers, actor Aidan, dop Declan and Paul, who directed from his own screenplay.

Another Filmline feature, Ted Demme’s Monument Avenue, was screened at Sundance, the Boston Film Festival and last month’s Montreal World Film Festival, and has also been picked up for u.s. distribution, this time by Lions Gate Films, which has theatrical rights. Miramax is handling tv and home video.

Set in Boston’s ‘Irish ghetto,’ the film was shot for about $16.5 million and stars Dennis Leary, Martin Sheen and Jean Triplehorn.

As for Clermont’s latest, Free Money, it’s been sold ‘just about everywhere in the world, but not in the u.s.’

‘We have had a few offers but they were not as financially interesting as we had hoped, but we haven’t given in as yet,’ says the producer.

A dark comedy budgeted at $22 million and set in an unidentified prison border town, the film stars Marlon Brando, Donald Sutherland and Charlie Sheen. Yves Simoneau directed.

Filmline’s The Eye of the Beholder with Ewan McGregor and Ashley Judd, another coproduction with the u.k., will complete its post-production by Christmas, and Clermont says the hope is to begin shooting with Simoneau on the super high-tech suspense feature Double Nickels this coming March.