‘Once when I was a young man, I killed a man in Newfoundland.’ Thus reads a line from the feature script Misery Harbour. Ken Pittman, executive producer of St. John’s based Red Ochre Productions (Finding Mary March, Anchor Zone, No Apologies) and president of the the Producers’ Association of Newfoundland, is inches from finalizing a coproduction deal with Norway’s Motlys (translates as Backlight), German distributor Pandorafilm and Danish independant production co. Arena Film that will see the $8-million production shoot for 30 days next April in Newfoundland’s Fogo Change Islands following a month in Norway.

The film is based on the writings of Danish/Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose, who claimed all his life that he killed a man in Newfoundland when he jumped ship as a young boy working on a fishing schooner. This murder played a significant role in many of his most famous novels, but no one has been able to trace the murder in Newfoundland or find police reports to confirm his story.

The core of Misery Harbour comes from Sandemose’s 1931 novel A Sailor Goes Ashore, and from Sandemose biographer Espen Haavardsholm’s 1988 book, The Man From Jante.

Norwegian director Nils Gaup (The Pathfinder, Shipwrecked, North Star) has committed to the project and Danish actor Tomas Villum Jensen has expressed strong interest in the lead role. Misery Harbour has already secured several presale agreements from European broadcasters and distributors.

Newfoundland based producer/pm/lm (Dooley Gardens) Mary Sexton is slated to assume the production manager role if and when Misery Habour hits the rock next spring.

Pittman says he expects Canadian funding from Telefilm, and the Newfoundland Development Corporation and indicated that the big three Canadian distribution companies had all expressed interest in the project. A remaining concern is the unconfirmed Telefilm-initiated Norway/ Canada coproduction treaty, that is vital to Red Ochre’s involvement in the production.

The coproduction deal was apparently initiated at mipcom last year and Motlys’ co-owner Sigve Endresen is back at mip this year trying to finalize the details with all the parties.

Pittman was recently awarded the CBC Pioneer Award at the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax for his ongoing contribution to the film and television industry in the Atlantic region. He has also just completed a new script titled Making Love in St. Pierre.

*Hatte has vision

Halifax’s T.H. Hatte (Moose Meat) is in the middle of a $60,000 half-hour documentary shoot for Vision tv in a small town somewhere in Nova Scotia. The secrecy of the location has to do with protecting the identity of the doc’s subject and title character ‘Alana.’

Financed by Vision, Telefilm, the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation, and a presale to French tv, Alana examines the hurdles facing a man undergoing a sex-change operation in a small Maritime town and his relationship with his teenage son. The film is being produced by Don Duchesne of Wildcard Productions. Local post shop Video Post will handle the edit with a delivery date to Vision set for November.

Hatte says that Alana is a compelling character who has lost nearly everything to become the woman that she truly is. ‘She’s in a strange limbo,’ says Hatte, ‘She’s lost her citizenship and identity. The government pays for her hormone treatments, but won’t pay for the `elective surgery’ that will complete her transformation.’

Hatte contends that as soon as Vision signed on as a broadcaster for Alana, the rest of the financing fell into place. ‘Canada’s faith network,’ is a strong presence in the region in terms of financing local documentaries. One of, if not the only specialty with an Atlantic region representative, Vision’s Nova Scotia-based Charles Doucet has been instrumental in financing many local projects.

Down for the Atlantic Film Festival and sponsoring the Dialogue With Directors workshop was Vision’s vice-president, programming and development Peter Flemington who was singing the praises of the region’s industry saying that 20% or $500,000 of Vision’s license fee money will go to the region this year. There are currently 20 projects with Vision funding on the go in the region, because ‘Producers here have stories to tell that only they can tell because they are their stories,’ says Flemington.

An example is Chuck Lapp and Bill McKiggan’s powerful documentary Fishing On The Brink, which screened at the festival to warm praise and will premier on Vision Nov. 11, to coincide with a Nov. 13 court date that will decide the fates of those who occupied government fishery offices and are the subject of the film. Vision kicked in $31,000 to the production which is narrated by This Hour Has 22 Minutes’ Mary Walsh.

While Vision’s license fees are not the highest in the industry, their commitment to the region is spurring production. A broadcaster is the crux of almost any production proposal as the funding agencies invariably ask for a committed broadcaster to spark agency financing, often the toughest piece of a production puzzle. More broadcasters should be looking to Vision’s commitment to the region, as a model for acquiring and helping create quality product.

*Eb and Flo on course

Director Sheri Elwood (La Leccion de Natacion – The Swimming Lesson) has begun production on her half-hour drama Eb and Flo near Hubbards, just down the road from the Black Harbour production office.

Eb and Flo will be broadcast on cbc later this year and stars Joan Gregson (Black Harbour) and Joseph Rutton (Writer’s Block), in a whimsical road movie that tells the tale of Ebenezer and Florence McNabb who go on a late-night search for their stolen boat on the eve of their 50th wedding anniversary.

An official Ontario/Nova Scotia coproduction, the film is a collaboration between Elwood’s Lunaflicks, Toronto-based producer Carolyn Bell, and Halifax-based coproducers Janice Evans and Greg Jones of Creative Atlantic Communications. The modestly-budgetted production will move to Toronto later this month.

Elwood’s short The Swimming Lesson made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this year and Elwood herself won the 1997 CBC/WIFT Writer’s Award.