Camilla producer working on

Canadian/British coproduction

Producer Christina Jennings (Camilla) is putting together the final financing on a new feature with u.k. coproducer Ann Scott (Enchanted April) of Greenpoint Films.

Swann, adapted by David Young from Carol Shield’s novel of the same name, is about poems left behind by a farmer’s wife after she is brutally killed by her spouse. A big-city academic and a small-town librarian discover the poems, and with a few inquiries, unearth some truths.

Pending signing, the academic will be played by Miranda Richardson, Brenda Fricker will star as the librarian, John Neville plays a small-town publisher and David Cronenberg, adding yet another cameo to his cv, has agreed to a small role.

Jennings estimates the budget at about $3.5 million, a surprisingly low figure considering the caliber of talent. ‘They are all very committed to this movie,’ she says.

The u.k. connection is linked to Camilla, explains Jennings. Scott’s partner in Greenpoint is Simon Relph, who coproduced the Bridget Fonda/Jessica Tandy vehicle.

bbc vet Anna Benson-Gyles is at the helm directing her first feature. Jennings says the dop, art director and other key crew are yet to be settled.

If all goes well, plans are to start production by July in a small Ontario town and in Toronto.

Norstar is the Canadian distributor. An international distributor has yet to be signed.

Jennings is also developing a couple of features with first-time Canadian directors: Flora and Fauna with Lori Spring and Reluctant Angel with John Helliker.

Danylkiw’s dozen

as part of a 12-picture deal with an undisclosed American mini-major, The Losers, a $3.5 million feature produced by Heartstar Productions, is rolling in town. Production manager/producer John Danylkiw says the output deal with the unnamed distributor is to produce a dozen small features in Canada.

With 25 projects behind him in the last five years, Danylkiw says he can make all 12 pics over the next three years.

Danylkiw calls The Losers, which is rolling as of April 10, a cross between Gotcha and Three Days of the Condor. As the story goes, a young fellow (Andrew Lowery of School Ties) teams up with a female street thief and the two attempt to outwit a rogue cia agent.

Los Angeles-based John Eyres (Monolith) is directing and local scribe Roy Sallows (Soft Deceit) is writing. dop is Peter Benison (Bullet to Beijing) and casting in Toronto is with Nelica Privet.

Danylkiw says two features are waiting in the wings and should be ready to go into production later this spring. He won’t say more.

Ritchie doc

The National Film Board’s Ontario studio has started production on a documentary about Charles Ritchie, the famous Canadian diplomat and renowned diarist. Ritchie, now 89 and living in Ottawa, will be filmed on 16mm by a small nfb crew, which includes director/dop John Walker, writer/interviewer David Macfarlane (The Danger Tree), and producer Silva Basmajian. Executive producer is Gerry Flahive.

Ritchie wrote four diaries and one family reminiscence, for which the nfb is presently negotiating the rights from publisher Macmillan of Canada. The books span Ritchie’s life from early childhood in Nova Scotia through career postings in London, New York, Washington and Paris where he associated with Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Bowan, Lyndon Johnson and many other notables.

Plans are to create at least a one-hour documentary biography, which Flahive says will focus less on the minutiae of diplomatic correspondence and more on Ritchie as a unique observer of the human condition.

‘What Ritchie has become known for is his unique perspective on Canada and the world,’ says Flahive.

The former ambassador and high commissioner was witness to many international incidents such as the famous confrontation between Johnson and Lester B. Pearson over a speech Pearson made about American bombing in Vietnam. Ritchie was in the room with the two men when Johnson said to Pearson: ‘You pissed on my rug.’

Flahive says the doc is not going to be an academic look at a part of Canadian history, but a film ‘more about a writer than a diplomat.’

It’s a fish-eat-fish world

Production company Ready Set Fish has hooked a distribution deal with Telegenic Programs for worldwide distribution of its pilot, Ready Set Fish With Dave Ferguson.

‘In a 200 fishing show universe in North America,’ says producer/writer/director Tom Barak in a press release, ‘you better be different, and in this series viewers get much more than the traditional two guys in a boat.’

The show’s differences, he says, are in the content: Ferguson ties flies and gives you a species-by-species analysis, conservation officers star, and advanced fishing concepts are discussed. Sounds like anglertainment.

The pilot was shot on location on Lake Huron, and Barak says Telegenic expects to have a 13-part series sold by September.

Coproducer is Andy Langevin.

Golden Girl

Almost Golden, a us$2.8 million mow by ABC Productions for Lifetime, is being produced in Toronto by BBS Productions.

The film stars Sela Ward (Sisters) as Jessica Savage, the first female anchor to snag a job on a national u.s. network. Savage worked for nbc from 1981 to 1983 when she was killed, at the age of 35, in a bizarre car accident.

Bernie Sofronski of ABC Productions is executive producer, director is Peter Werner (Moonlighting), and dop is Neil Roach. Locally, Adam Haight is producing, David Moe is production designer, Tony Thatcher is production manager, and Rosina Bucci is casting.

Shooting starts April 26 and continues through May 21, with most of the work being done in-studio at Baton.

Grass roots

‘This film is about the history of hysteria,’ says documentary filmmaker Ron Mann about his next feature, Ron Mann’s Grass. It’s about marijuana and the history of repression surrounding it. It’s also about the culture of the intoxicating weed.

The setting is the u.s. and Canada, and the focus is what Mann calls ‘the anti-marijuana hysteria from the Reefer Madness period of the ’30s to the present zero tolerance of the ’90s.’

Mann is digging into the life and times of Harry Anslinger (author of Marijuana: Assassin of Youth), who was head of the u.s. federal narcotics bureau through the ’60s, and he’s also looking into the racist roots of marijuana laws and their enforcement.

Whether or not new footage will be shot for the $1.3 million 35mm doc is not yet decided. So far, Mann says it looks like he’ll be collecting over 500 hours of film, including the 1970s short featuring Sonny Bono (in fur vest) warning of the evils of the weed.

Mann is working with American archivist Rick Prelinger of Ephemeral Films, who has a knack for weird cultural material and collects industrials and educational films from the ’30s through the ’60s.

Grass will be the first film licensed by the Voyager Company for the Internet, says Mann, and plans are to release it on the net in a serialized form after a theatrical run and cd-rom release.

Longtime Mann collaborators editor Robert Kennedy and coproducer Sue Len Quon are onside. Keith Clarkson is executive producer, Peter Starr is the National Film Board producer and Marc Glassman is associate producer. Mann hopes to get Robert Mitchum to narrate.

The Ontario Film Development Corporation and the nfb are in for development financing. Citytv and Canadian Famous Players will distribute in Canada, and Films Transit is foreign sales agent.

They’re baa-ack

Later this month, Cagney and Lacey is (once again) being revived in Hogtown, location of the original pilot. Executive producer Barney Rosenzweig is putting together two $3 million two-hour tv movies for cbs with Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless recreating their original roles. John Patterson is directing, David Flaherty is handling locations, and Marilyn Stonehouse is production manager. At press time, crew and further cast were tba. Executive in charge of production is Paula Marcus. Claire Walker is casting in Canada. Production continues to the middle of June.

Got the mines crossed

apologies to Laszlo Barna of Barna Alper and Jim Burt of the cbc for mixing up their mine stories. It was reported in the March 13 Ontario Scene that both are making mows on the Westray mine explosion, while, in fact, cbc’s project is about the Giant Mine in Yellowknife where nine miners were murdered in a bombing. The Barna project, a feature entitled Portal to Hell, is about Westray.