Mehta to do film adaptation of

Mistry novel Such a Long Journey

Rumors that Deepa Mehta’s feature film Camilla is set for a recut by the film’s international distributor, New York-based Miramax Films, have been put to rest by the director. The intergenerational road movie stars Bridget Fonda and Jessica Tandy as fast friends who discover a bit about the world around them and about the men they love when they travel from the Southern u.s. to Toronto. The film was finished about four months ago, says Mehta, the music was redone, and that was the end of any changes.

Andy Myers, vice-president of distribution at Norstar says the plan is to release Camilla wide (with Miramax handling international) Nov. 4 in the u.s. on as many as 800 screens and simultaneously in all the major keys in Canada. This is, by far, the widest release Mehta has seen for a film of hers: Sam and Me, she says, ‘saw about two screens in the States.’

While release awaits, Mehta is in pre-production on a feature film adaptation of Rohinton Mistry’s acclaimed novel Such a Long Journey, with producer Paul Stephens of The Film Works. The story concerns a father-son conflict within a Parsi family in Bombay during one of the many assassination attempts aimed at Indira Gandhi. Sooni Taraporevala (Salaam, Bombay!, Mississippi Masala) wrote the screenplay.

Mehta, who says she dropped everything to do this film, will direct, with plans to shoot on location in Bombay starting mid-December for about a two-month stretch. Commercial dop Guy Dufaux is the cinematographer and Mehta is hoping to get Francois Seguin (Jesus of Montreal) to take on production design. Just back from India on a preliminary casting venture, Mehta plans to return in early September. For now, Ranjit Chowdry (Sam and Me) is cast in an undisclosed role.

The film is co-produced by Simon MacCorkandale of London-based Amy International and Suresh Jindhal (who co-produced Gandhi). Tony Allard of Pacific Motion Pictures is a financing partner. Channel Four and distributors are currently looking at the project.

Sticks and Stones from Smith & son

Recent Hollywood addition director John N. Smith (The Boys of St. Vincent) has wrapped production in Los Angeles on The Posse Don’t Do Homework starring Michelle Pfeiffer, and is now embarking on a tv movie for the cbc with his son, writer Bruce Smith. The mow about a troubled youth who is adopted by a foster mom is titled Sticks and Stones and is at the draft stage.

Pocahontas: the movie

Pocahontas: The Legend, Protocol Entertainment president Steve Levitan’s movie-brainchild, is set to start production in Ontario in early September.

Levitan hired Daniele Suissa and Donald Martin (of 3 Themes) to write the script about the heroic 17th-century figure and her tragic love-affair with an Englishman. Suissa is producing the theatrical feature with Levitan, and Suissa will direct. The three leads are being negotiated now.

Levitan says the approximately $2.5 million film was financed by Protocol, ofip, and two mystery partners in the u.s., one of whom is a foreign sales agent. Production manager is Manny Danelon, cinematographer is Richard Leiterman. Locations include Tobermory, Midland and Owen Sound and shooting will continue into early October.

Falling in love with Rhombus

The Velvet Gentleman, Rhombus Media’s new dance/drama one-hour film for cbc, started production in mid-August in a reconstructed art nouveau Parisian cafe from 1910, designed by Carl Sprague (one of the art directors on Age of Innocence).

The elaborate setting is the background for a chapter in Eric Satie’s life when the composer/ pianist encounters a woman he had loved passionately 15 years earlier.

The story goes that Satie’s desire had been so overwhelming that when his amour turned down his proposal of marriage, he threw her off his balcony. A trapeze artist, she survived the drop. Enter ballet dancers, contortionists, circus players and a bit of magic realism.

Stage actor Nicholas Pennell stars as Satie, Veronica Tennant as his love. Other cast members are past and present National Ballet of Canada principals Jeremy Ransom and Owen Montegue, and some of the Cirque du Soleil troupe.

Tim Southam is directing, Paul Sarossy (Exotica) is dop, producers are Jennifer Jonas and Daniel Iron of Rhombus, and Niv Fichman is executive producer.

The just-under-a-million movie has got a two-week shooting schedule in a studio in Toronto. In addition to the cbc, presales have gone to src, a&e, Philips Classics Productions, avro tv (Holland) and rtp (Portugal).

Hybrid for Spectrum

The award-winning duo of Janis Cole and Holly Dale of Spectrum Films (P4W, Hookers on Davie) are teaming up on a film for the first time in six years (the last one was Calling the Shots).

The feature is Guy’s Story, a hybrid film (a mix of doc, drama and experimental) which is constructed around emotional impressions of aids.

It’s ‘more in the flavour of our earlier features,’ says co-producer and co-director Cole. Part of the inspiration for Cole was the loss of a close relative to the disease, but it’s not one person’s story, she says.

The pair are shooting the film in segments, developing the story in chapters, and doing it all with very little money (a few grants have helped, including one from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance). The plan is to have the film finished by next summer, release it into the festival circuit and wind up with a theatrical distribution deal.

Canadian cheese

It’s either ‘cheesy’ or ‘Canadian’. That’s the opinion of six- to 10-year-olds when they see a low-budget tv show that looks cheap, says Clive Vanderburgh, prof of Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson Polytechnic University, and producer/director/executive producer of tvo’s new children’s drama adventure (two-part pilot) McCabe Mysteries. Vanberburgh, who is nothing less than an expert in children’s programming research, has a budget of $675,000 including development and internal costs for the two half-hour Hallowe’en shows targeted for this age group. To save money, the three-week shoot, which just wrapped in Toronto, had a crew about 20% smaller than usual. To keep it looking good, Vanderburgh focused on art direction with production designer Graeme Morphy and, with the help of dop Mike Ellis, the shows were shot on video with a final ‘film look’ in mind (aided by the Los Angeles-based Film Look’s process of treating beta to look like the real stuff). Vanderburgh says all of these elements, combined with a good story (written by Clive Vandersby), should safeguard the show against those damning words from the mouths of babes.

Advancing technology, retreating prices

Howard katz and Jeremy Diamond, aspiring entrepreneurs of new media, are working on a way to digitize 35mm for computer animation at a fraction of the cost currently charged by transfer houses. That’s just the beginning. The team is also developing new production and post-production techniques for patching and special effects.

Katz calls Hollywood ‘an expensive middleman’ and aims to develop procedures that are both affordable for independent producers and available north of the border. He cites the expertise born of Sheridan College (through its animation program) and found in Canada’s post-production industry as the basic sources needed to eliminate the American element.

While he won’t divulge the details of his experiment, except to say that he is working with North America Studios in Markham, Ont. Katz promises that his trailer, Ad Infinitum, which was shot on 35mm this summer, will demonstrate the new technologies. Katz and Diamond spared no expense making the virtual reality, sci-fi short: with private investment (and no credit cards, Katz swears) the duo came up with $120,000 for the production. The trailer should be ready by the new year, and by then, Katz should have patents secured.

Knight of the purple table

Catalyst Entertainment president Mr. Falzon, or ‘Sir Charles’ to British-based partner/producer/distributor Britt Allcroft, has got a new, four-part series of Shining Time Station one-hour specials on his hands. The news was announced at a stylish schmoozefest at King Street eatery/billiards hall, Milano, amidst purple pool tables and decor reminiscent of the Flintstone age.

Catalyst vice-president Nancy Chapelle and series co-creator (with Allcroft) Rick Siggelkow discussed just what is different about this series from the Shining Time Station half-hour version. Siggelkow says the target audience has shifted from pre-schoolers to what he calls ‘graduates of the original Shining Time series’ and their parents. The plan is to pull in these new viewers with guest star appearances on each show (Jack Klugman is signed for the first) and with storylines that tackle family issues facing tweens and their parents.

Production will start up Sept. 12 on the first episode in Tottenham, Ont. and will continue in and around Toronto through mid-November. Wayne Moss is directing, Tom Jackson and Gerard Parks are starring in two episodes each, and casting and crewing up are underway.

Also, watch for Catalyst’s impending Los Angeles office. Although it’s not official yet, word is that the Tinseltown operation will be set up to attract coproduction partners and to sell directly to cable in the u.s. The Martin Short Show is said to have paved the way south.