Montreal:Treat Williams is confirmed as the lead in Dead Ahead, an Allegro Films suspense movie from director Yves Simoneau (Free Money) and producers Jacques Methe and Stephane Reichel.

A tv feature film budgeted at us$6 million, the six-week shoot has financing from Turner Network Television and begins principal photography in Montreal on or around Aug. 10.

The deal was initiated by Motion International president Stephen Greenberg and came together in a matter of weeks, says Methe.

‘Motion has a very good relationship with TNT,’ says Methe, ‘and it so happens that Stephane Reichel (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and myself also have a relationship with them, because in our previous lives we did shows with Turner. So it rapidly became almost a family thing.’

In Dead Ahead, human frailty in the form of a brother’s gambling debt leads to a hit and outright terror as the mob moves in to take control of the brewing operation owned by Williams .

Anne Pritchard (Snake Eyes) is the shoot’s production designer. d.o.p. Eric Cayla is shooting on 35mm film and Elizabeth Gimber is the line producer. Casting is being done by Elite Productions as well as in Vancouver and Toronto.

tnt has the u.s. and South America on Dead Ahead. Motion has Canada and international.

– Sovimage primetime – Diva, Caserne 24

One of Quebec’s leading screenwriters Fernand Dansereau returns to tv this fall with Caserne 24, a new Productions Sovimage series set in the day-to-day world of big-city firefighters.

The bible for the $4.6 million series was authenticated with Service de prevention des incendies de Montreal, although the storyline apparently invokes ‘the lighter side’ of the business and isn’t all emergency and trauma. The Digital Betacam production uses exterior locations exclusively with an East End fire station as the principal set.

Leading players are Francis Reddy, Tania Kontoyanni, Germain Houde, Roger Leger, Louis-Georges Girard, Anick Lemay and Audrey Benoit.

Dansereau’s impressive tv filmography includes the historic drama Shehaweh, directed by Jean Beaudin, Le Parc des Braves and Les Filles de Caleb.

The dop is Ronald Plante. Louise-Marie Beauchamp is the art director and Francois Cote (Bouscotte) and Jean Bourbonnais are the co-directors.

Thirteen half-hours are complete with the second leg beginning mid-August and wrapping Sept. 25.

Caserne 24 airs on Radio-Canada this fall and is produced by Jacques Payette and Claudette Viau with funding from Telefilm Canada, CTCPF and both tax credits.

Sovimage is also producing 18 hours of the tva fashion-world drama series Diva II. Taping goes from June to February ’99 with Vincent Gabriele and Andre Dupuis producing.

Docs in production include Bruno Carriere’s Qui etiez-vous Monsieur Peladeau, a 90-minute examination of the life of the late and enigmatic and sometimes scandalous Quebecor founder Pierre Peladeau, and Daniel Creusot’s Drapeau, sa vie, sa ville, a three-hour portrait of former Montreal mayor, Jean Drapeau. Both have been commissioned by src.

DramaVision and Jacques Bouchard’s The Multimedia Group of Canada are the export agents for both Diva and Caserne 24.

– Matroni et Moi

Jean-Philippe Duval’s feature film adaptation of the stage play Matroni et Moi is in production through to mid-August. The film’s financing and distribution is part of an output deal announced at Cannes by Max Films producer Roger Frappier and Alliance Vivafilm, which has the domestic and international rights.

Based on the 1995 Alexis Martin stage play, Matroni et Moi is described as an absurdist comedy set against a philosophical thriller narrative with Martin, Guylaine Tremblay, the talented Pierre Lebeau in the role of Matroni, Gary Boudreault and Pierre Curzi, as M. Larochelle, in the leading roles.

Director Duval’s credits include the doc La Vie a du charme, Soho and the coproduced tv movie L’Enfant des Appalaches. Luc Vandal is producing with Frappier and Andre Turpin is the shoot’s cinematographer.

– Biname honors at Karlovy Vary

Charles Biname’s Le Coeur au Poing has won two of the six principal awards at the 33rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic. Biname won the best director prize and the Crystal Globe Grand Prize for best film in competition, the latter accompanied by the tidy cash sum of us$20,000.

Le Coeur au Poing stars Pascale Montpetit who attended the closing night gala along with Biname (Eldorado, Margeurite Volant). The film was produced by Cite-Amerique and is distributed internationally by France Film. Art Box Production is the sales agent in France.

In other news, Cite-Amerique and Mars International of Paris are coproducing a tv movie remake of the 1938 Marcel Pagnol classic La Femme du Boulanger. Set in the 1950s, the film tells the story of an earnest village baker who refuses to bake anymore when his wife takes up with a handsome shepherd.

Shooting on location in the French village of Artignose sur Verdon wraps at the end of July with Nicolas Ribowski (Navarro, Arsene Lupin) directing. Roger Hanin plays the baker with Canadian actors Danielle Proulx, Lenie Scoffie and Marc Beland also featured.

Pre-sales were made to France Television, Radio-Canada and Super Ecran. Jacques Nahum of Mars and Lorraine Richard and Louis Laverdiere of Cite-Amerique are the producers.

– More film action

The busy season just got busier with up to 15 new film shoots either in production or advanced pre-production.

New start-ups as reported by the STCVQ include Marc S. Grenier’s Eternal Revenge, from Allegro Films, the PolyGram-financed feature Where The Money Is, starring Paul Newman and directed by Mark Kanievska, and The Hunger II which opens Aug. 10 and goes to early February `99 with Telescene Film Group topper Robin Spry producing and Christian Gagne supervising producer.

The six-hour Productions La Fete/Showtime crime-family miniseries Family begins shooting August 12 through to mid-December with Kevin Tierney producing and Michel Poulette directing. (u.s. indie producer Imagine and director Ron Howard are shooting ed tv, a remake of Poulette’s local box-office hit Louis 19.)

The effects-laden U.K./Canada tv series The Secret Adventure of Jules Verne began production in High Definition in mid-July and goes to late April ’99. Michael Mullally and Nicolas Clermont are the producers.

Also on tap for August, the Alan Goldstein feature Home Team from Transfilm producers Claude Leger and Luciano Lisi, the Curtis Wehrfritz Quebec/Ontario coproduced feature Four Days from Cite-Amerique and Greg Dummett Productions, shooting from Aug. 17 to Sept. 18, and Pierre Falardeau’s Miracle a Memphis, an Elvis Gratton feature-sequel from ACPAV producer Bernadette Payeur.

Other features with reported August starts are Alain Chartrand’s biographical Chartrand et Simone from Productions Videofilm, Geoffrey Edwards’ Fish Out of Water from producer Richard Goudreau and Melenny Productions and the Optima Films’ feature Beyond Mozambique with composer Lewis Furey (Night Magic) in the director’s chair.

Also in preproduction, a new Cinar/Zukerman miniseries, Revenge of the Land, slated to start principal photography Aug. 17 under the direction of John N. Smith, and two extended Telescene series for Fox Family Channel, Big Wolf on Campus and Misguided Angels. Production dates are the same for both, Aug. 31 and to Feb. ’99.