vancouver: Double Happiness, Vancouver director Mina Shum’s sweetheart film of last year’s festival circuit, opened in theaters last month in New York, l.a., San Francisco and across Canada to rave reviews from the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, two thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert, and a host of other critical accolades.

Now let’s see whether the applause finally adds up to some boffo box office for a b.c.-made film.

Certainly the distributors, Fineline Films in the u.s. and Malofilm in Canada, have put some muscle behind their promotional activities, with a major tv ad buy during Seinfeld and a comprehensive, cross-border promotional junket for Shum.

Double Happiness was produced under the New Views program (renamed Premiere) – supported by British Columbia Film, the National Film Board and Telefilm Canada – which provides 100% of the financing for an aspiring director’s low-budget feature film debut.

Double Happiness producer Stephen Hedgyes is back in Vancouver minding shop at First Generation Films and trying to take advantage of all the publicity to push along their next film, Drive She Said, which the young Chinese-Canadian describes as ‘Mina Shum meets Betty Blue to hit the road for Paris, Texas.’

A distributor and budget have yet to be finalized, but Hedgyes is optimistic the film will be in production in Vancouver by this fall.

Walking on the Wild side

filmmaker Nettie Wild is about to walk into the middle of another armed aboriginal confrontation – only this one, set in Mexico, makes Oka look like child’s play. Wild is currently in the southern Mexican state of Chiapis, bordering on Guatemala, doing research for a new feature-length documentary entitled A Place Called Chiapis, which she hopes to begin filming this winter.

Apparently Wild has an invitation from the guerrilla leaders of a volatile Indian uprising in Chiapis to enter the camps. As in her previous films, A Rustling of Leaves, which dealt with a guerrilla movement in the Philippines, and Blockade, which examined the complex issues of native land claims and logging on Canada’s West Coast, Wild hopes to examine all sides involved in the Chiapis dispute over who controls the land.

cbc is participating in the development of A Place Called Chiapis and negotiations are still underway for its participation in a broadcast licence.

Orchard’s Dead Serious about The Suspect

producer Nick Orchard is one step closer to getting The Suspect, based on the novel by Vancouver writer L.R. Wright, made. Last month he signed a coproduction deal with London, Eng.-based Portman Productions. Portman, which does primarily television production, has just completed a new film, An Awfully Big Adventure, which pairs up actor Hugh Grant and director Mike Newell who last worked together on Four Weddings and a Funeral.

They approached Sir Alec Guinness to star in The Suspect, and while the renowned British actor thought the script, written by Vancouver’s Ian Weir was ‘brilliant,’ he had to decline the role due to his wife’s ill health. Other actors now being considered to star in the film include Nigel Hawthorne and Jack Lemmon.

Another feature film in development with Orchard’s company, Zeitgeist Productions, which has piqued the interest of distributors of late is Dead Serious, a mystery thriller set at a fishing lodge where a dead body shows up. Malofilm and several other Canadian distributors are taking a serious look-see.

MOW work for Vancouver

now that producer Stan Brooks of Once Upon a Time Pictures in l.a. has linked up with l.a.-based Savoy Pictures to form Savoy Pictures TV, Vancouver could be the beneficiary of a lot more production, if everything goes well on their first mow, which begins shooting here later this month with Vancouver’s Ron French producing.

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes, based on ex-Mouseketeer/ Beach Blanket Bingo babe Annette Funicello’s autobiography of the same name, begins filming in Vancouver Aug. 21, with Vancouver’s Bill Corcoran directing. Funicello, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis several years ago, will star in the film, being produced for cbs.

French says Brooks and Savoy have a multi-picture deal which should see many more films produced in Vancouver provided everything ‘runs smoothly’ on this one. Hmmm, sounds like a union incentive to me.

After French wraps production on A Dream this fall, he and Scott Kennedy are back to concentrating on executive producing Channel 92, a sitcom pilot which won the Laugh! Chance competition sponsored by British Columbia Film and u.tv earlier this summer.

The sitcom about a sports channel that becomes a women’s channel to save its licence is currently in rewrites with writers Christine Lippa, Ian Boothby and Dean Haglund. Then it’s on to workshopping the script with a cast of Vancouver actor/comedians and production in late October, with director James Head wrangling the guffaws.

The pilot episode will be aired in January on u.tv, with audience ratings deciding whether the show gets another laugh chance.

Forefront’s Fully Involved

and speaking of babes, those gals at Forefront Productions have paired up with Kim Hogan and Brenda Liles of Makara Productions to coproduce Fully Involved, a new one-hour dramatic series set in a fire hall. Babes you ask? Well apparently it’s a cross between Homicide and Baywatch. You know how those firefighters like to pose for calendars and slide down poles. Whew! Those ancillary products just boggle the mind.

Also on the books at Forefront is Jupiter Cafe, a new interactive multimedia project being coproduced with Lisa O’Brian and Bernice Van der Laan of Toronto-based Blue Dog Productions. The game, aimed at kids aged six to nine, is an intergalactic adventure where players soar between the stars and planets while learning and solving engineering problems.