– Montreal: The new Jacques Leduc film L’Age de braise traces an imaginary portrait of the final days of a 70-something lady who slowly releases the things of the here and now – objects, sentiments, memories – and then dies in ‘good health.’

‘It’s as if she knew the exact hour and date of her death and she g’es for it head-on. As if she knew, because she d’esn’t really know, and when it happens she’s surprised,’ explains Leduc, an accomplished photographer, dop and documentary director long associated with the National Film Board.

French film star Annie Girardot plays Caroline, the movie’s central personality and the daughter of a French immigrant who has devoted much of her life to charitable works.

France Castel, Michel Ghoyareb, Rose-Andree Michaud, Domini Blythe, Pascale Bussieres, Widemir Normil, Mireille Metellus and Denise Bombardier, as a tv interviewer, are also featured.

Jacques Marcotte, associated with earlier Marc-Andre Forcier projects, is co-screenwriter. Pierre Letarte (Dangerous Minds, Dieppe) is the cinematographer. Vianney Gauthier is the art director, Jerome Derome is the music composer and Claude Beaugrand is the film’s sound designer.

L’Age de braise (translated as glowing embers) shoots 30 days from mid-May to June 21 on a budget of $2 million. Luc Vandal of Productions du Lundi Matin is producing in association with Nicole Lamothe of l’Office National du Film and Isabelle Parion and Raymond Parizer of France’s Sunday Films.

Funding sources include Telefilm Canada and distributor Compagnie France Film. A spring 1998 theatrical release is anticipated.

-Prisma opens on Paparazzi, Platinum

In the 10-hour Productions Prisma tv series Paparazzi, penned by Fabienne Larouche and Rejean Tremblay, viewers are plunged into the sensationalized and scandal-driven world of paparazzi framed with a conflicting subtext of the ‘the public’s right to know’ versus individual privacy.

Leads in the series’ first leg, to be broadcast on the TVA Network this October, include Patrick Goyette (Ces Enfants d’ailleurs) and Marc Messier as two unrelenting veteran photogs, J’elle Morin (Urgence, Alys Robi, Montreal p.q.) as a female apprentice, and singer Michelle Richard as a former marquee talent whose career is destroyed following the publication of a compromising photo spread of la vedette in the arms of a mob boss.

Alain Chartrand (Urgence, Une Vie comme une riviere) is the director. Daniel Vincelette is the dop, Gaudeline Sauriol is the art director and Francois Gill is editing.

Paparazzi films for 90 days through to late August and is budgeted at $8.9 million.

As for Platinum, a cbc tv movie under the direction of Bruce McDonald (Highway 61), filming started April 30 and g’es to June 14. Set against a David and Goliath motif, Platinum tells the story of a hot Montreal recording label, the fragile and megalomaniac talents who pass through its doors, and the ferocious competition of an artist-eating multinational.

Leads include u.k. actor Robert Cavanah as the hip label head Simon, Tanya Allen as a dangerously depressed pop star, Pascale Bussieres as Simon’s thoughtful partner, and Stuart Bick as Mickey, headspinner for the merger creeps.

Prisma president Claude Godbout is producing on a budget of $4 million. Madeleine Henrie is the shoot’s delegate producer. Georges Dufaux is the dop, Luc Beland is costume designer and Serge Bureau is the art director.

-Date change on Molitor’s Apprentice

Aska Film producer/director Claude Gagnon has announced new dates for Molitor’s Apprentice, a feature starring Danny Gilmour (Lilies) and legendary u.s. actor Anthony Quinn (Zorba the Greek). Quinn was the subject of a tribute at the 1996 Montreal World Film Festival.

Slated for seven weeks of location shooting in Japan at the end of August, the film is scripted by Gagnon and tells the story of a young Quebecois painter overwhelmed by culture shock shortly upon his arrival in the Far East. Circumstances change only after an encounter with Quinn’s character, a renowned American painter who has lived in Japan for many years and decides to share some timely advise with his protege.

Gagnon is particularly pleased with his leads. ‘Danny is one of a very few bilingual actors in the country and Tony is in excellent form and is extremely excited by the project,’ he says.

-More from Tele-Action

Tele-Action producers Claudio Luca (Margaret’s Museum, The Boys of St. Vincent) and Colin Neale are prepping a busy ’97 slate. Lead project for the seven-year-old house is Rosemonde, an eight-hour miniseries for the TVA Network. This story chronicles the mid-18th century saga of the Acadian deportation and is scheduled to shoot mid-August with Phil Comeau and Jean Barbeau writing and Michel Coulombe as script editor and contributing writer.

The hit Canal Famille tween sitcom Radio-Enfer, played out in a high school radio station, has been commissioned by cbc, with Paul Risacher as lead writer. Luca & Co. will have 78 half-hours in the can by the end of this, the third season.

As for the four-hour miniseries Les Orphelins de Duplessis, aired this season on Radio-Canada and directed by Johanne Pregent, it’s currently in the adaptation stage at Cinar Studios preparing for a 1998 English broadcast on cbc.

Pregent, meanwhile, is working on a feature, Fugue, described as a $3 million teen drama. Luca says Pregent’s project is one of an unprecedented 90 feature projects knocking on Telefilm Canada’s door this spring. Pregent and Gilles Desjardins are the screenwriters.

‘I think Johanne deserves something now,’ says the producer. ‘She’s at that stage, she’s arrived. It’s the first time I’ve worked with a director who had the final cut completely ready [on Les Orphelins] four weeks after shooting.’

Striking a common chord, Luca says producers are pushing for longer feature film shoots. ‘We want to have more shooting days. It’s the problem. Things go so fast we don’t always have the time to set up the way we’d like to.’