Montreal: There is a generous menu of new and promising program leads out of mipcom, English-track drama from Cite-Amerique and Newfoundland’s Passage Films, animation coproduction from Cine-Groupe, and extended doc series from Verseau International and Pixcom Productions and their new European partners, tsr and Cineteve, but chez nous, the first order of business must be production.

Universal Pictures’ international action thriller The Day of the Jackal star Bruce Willis and director Michael Caton-Jones are back for a short week of underground (in the Metro) filming Nov. 3-6, while new feature film starts later this month include For Hire from Kingsborough Greenlight Pictures and Little Men from Allegro Films. The slick tv drama anthology series The Hunger from Telescene Communications and Scott Free also kicks off this month.

Meanwhile, back in the present, principal unit photography started Oct. 28 on The Peacekeeper, the latest Filmline International feature from producer Nicolas Clermont and first-time French director Frederic Forestier.

Basically the story of the ‘man with the football’ – the agent assigned to carry the nuclear-trigger suitcase – high-concept national security turns to terror when a revenge-crazed ex-marine played by Montreal actor Michael Sarrazin hijacks the president’s trigger man.

Dolph Lundgren (Silent Trigger) plays the agent, Roy Scheider is the American president and Montel Williams plays the Lundgren character’s sidekick.

Clermont is quite convinced Forestier has a promising career in film, apparently based only on a couple of prize-winning festival shorts.

Craft credits go to dop John Berrie, production designer John Meighen and editor Yves Langlois.

Now a wholly owned subsidiary of Malofilm Communications, Filmline has five features in development for 1997.

The Peacekeeper is budgeted at $16 million and goes for 42 days through to early December.

-The man behind Le Masque

The latest project from Prisma Productions and the prolific tv writing team of Rejean Tremblay and Fabienne Larouche is the miniseries Le Masque, a turbulent four-hour dramatization of the private and professional life of a star nhl goalie, his arch rival and the woman who loves them both.

Popular Quebec actor and talk show host Patrice L’Ecuyer is the man behind the mask. Celine Bonnier (Million Dollar Babies) plays the gorgeous wife, with Pierre Curzi as the coach, Francois Tasse and Raymond Cloutier as the team suits, and Luc Guerin and Denis Bernard in leading roles.

Richard Roy (Caboose) is directing, Daniel Vincelette is the dop and Ray Dupuis is the art director.

The producer is Claude Godbout and Joanne Forgues is exec producer.

The 36-day shoot wraps in early December. General Motors, La Brasserie Molson and hardware retailer Rona are backing this $3.75 million drama, slated for the March ratings sweeps and Television Quatre Saisons.

-La Conciergerie des Monstres

With its freshly minted bankroll, Cinepix Film Properties and director Michel Poulette have started shooting the film noir police thriller La Conciergerie des Monstres, the director’s second feature following the 1995 Quebec box office hit Louis 19, le roi des ondes.

The film’s casting is most promising. Serge Dupire (Jalna) plays a hard-bitten retired cop with a great name (Jacques Daniels), who undertakes a dangerous personal investigation when his life-long partner is executed mob-style. Things aren’t what they seem (could it be otherwise?) when the owner of a strange hangout called La Conciergerie des Monstres turns up dead on the hood of his Range Rover and the grieving widow shows up at jd’s door.

Paul Dion, Ray Cloutier, Carl Bechard, Macha Grenon, Michel Forget, Tania Kontoyanni and Monique Spaziani star.

Christian Larouche is the producer. Nicole Hilareguy is the pm and Jean Becotte is the shoot’s art director. Yves Belanger is the dop and Yves Benoit is the sound recordist. Peter Measroch and Jean Frenette are heading up the post and stunts departments, respectively.

Conciergerie is the newly oriented cfp’s third French-track feature following the Georges Mihalka box-office hit L’Homme Ideal – $800,000 in its first month – and La Reve de la Carotte, a coproduction with France starring Michel Courtemanche.

-Provacateur lifts Donovan

Via Appia Communications, producers Claudio Castravelli and Eris Salvatori’s company, opens an ambitious ’96/97 slate with Provacateur, director Jim Donovan’s feature film debut.

The film is a contemporary political thriller backdropped by a North Korean nuclear crisis following the death of The Great Helmsman. It’s budgeted at $7 million and shoots for 30 days through to Nov. 30.

Jane March (Color of Night), the excellent lead in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Lover, plays a North Korean woman who defects. She’s taken in by the widow of an American army colonel and falls in love with their son, played by Lilo Brancatto (A Bronx Tale). Montreal actor Steven Mandel (Dallas) also stars.

Craft credits go to dop Jean-Pierre Trudel and art director Sylvain Gingras (Liste Noire).

Donovan has combined hard work and talent for his feature start, first directing retail commercials and videoclips with S.W.A.T. Films and later doing national brand advertising with spot house La Fabrique d’Images.

Provacateur is financed by presales to Jade Fog of Toronto for foreign rights, Allegro Films Distribution (reconstituted as Coscient/Astral Distribution) Canadian rights and Live Entertainment the u.s.

Castravelli (Silent Hunter, Demon House) says Dance with the Dragron, an action feature with Tom Berenger as the possible lead, is a likely go for January. The company intends to shoot three features a year priced in the $5 million to $10 million range.

Provacateur is crewed by the stcvq, Quebec’s freelance film technicians union.