Are there any diseases that have not yet been the subject of a made-for-TV movie? Epstein-Barr Syndrome, perhaps? Did Lyme Tick Disease get its 15 minutes of fame? Has anyone optioned Gout? There can be no doubt that it is hard enough to make MOWs that stand out from the crowd. But it is harder still, admits Society’s Child producer Phyllis Laing, to make one that doesn’t fall into the all-too-familiar ‘disease of the week’ formula.

It was all over but for the cheering and the scrambled eggs when this year’s Toronto International Film Festival concluded with its annual awards brunch at the Four Seasons on Sept. 15 – where the top honor went to director David Cronenberg and his thriller Spider.

Joy Rosen and Lisa Olfman are the founders of Toronto production and distribution company Portfolio Entertainment, an award-winning producer and distributor of youth and primetime programming. Stolen Miracle, a Portfolio-produced MOW, is up for two 2002 Gemini Awards.

It took him 33 years, but Rick Mercer finally got around to directing. The multiple Gemini-winning writer/ actor – busy these past five seasons with Made in Canada and, before that, This Hour Has 22 Minutes – recently got behind the camera to shoot the final episode of his popular comedy series, the preceding season of which is up for another best comedy Gemini.

Asking executive producer Michael Donovan to explain the success of This Hour Has 22 Minutes is like asking an expert surfer to describe an ocean wave.

Building on the success of Trudeau, Chester, NS-based Big Motion Pictures is in development on a prequel to last year’s acclaimed miniseries. Trudeau: The Early Years will focus on the celebrated prime minister’s life before Ottawa, say BMP producers Wayne Grigsby and David MacLeod.
Unlike Trudeau, the prequel will be produced in both French and English, four one-hour episodes in each language, to air on CBC and Radio-Canada, respectively.
Grigsby says versioning for a French and English audience will increase production time and budget by about 40%, for a projected budget of $12 million.
Casting will also be difficult, as the project demands actors who are comfortable performing in both languages. Bilingual Colm Feore, who played Trudeau in the first miniseries, will return to play the younger Trudeau in the prequel. Guy Fournier (executive story editor on Trudeau) will cowrite the script with Grigsby, who is looking at bringing back Trudeau director Jerry Ciccoritti to helm the prequel.

The idea for An American in Canada came from a Canadian in America, namely Howard Busgang, a 13-year veteran of Los Angeles returning to showrun an upcoming CBC comedy series about an American transplanted to Canada.

Vancouver: A quartet of MOWs based on the stories of Mary Higgins Clark will wrap back-to-back (to-back-to-back) production in Vancouver Dec. 3. Production began Sept. 3.
Produced as an interprovincial coproduction by Saskatoon’s Edge Entertainment and Vancouver’s Waterfront Pictures for PAX TV and CanWest Global (with an array of international presales), the Suspense Theatre anthology, as it’s being called, features $2.8-million adaptations of We’ll Meet Again, He Sees You When You’re Sleeping, Before I Say Goodbye and A Crime of Passion each at $2.8 million.
We’ll Meet Again, with its planned November airdate, just wrapped, with Laura Leighton (Melrose Place), Brandy Ledford (Baywatch) and Anne Openshaw (Narc) in the leads. Done for this Yuletide season, the Christmas-themed He Sees You When You’re Sleeping was just prepping at press time and no cast was signed.

It’s not that the people at Buzz don’t like their 2001 Gemini Award. By the sounds of it, cast and crew couldn’t have been happier when their cult show scored last year’s best comedy writing honor – snagging the faux gold statuette in an upset win over more mainstream shows Made in Canada and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Buzz is nominated again this year, running against those same shows as well as An American in Canada and Women of the Night.

Sandra Faire’s credentials as a Canadian talent spotter are legendary.

Montreal: The media turnout was unprecedented at the upscale Lemeac restaurant Sept. 16, the day before the start of principal photography on the France/Canada feature film coproduction Pere et fils. Press and cameras were there to see and hear legendary French actor Philippe Noiret (La Vie et rien d’autre, Monsieur Albert), who plays a manipulative widower plotting closer ties with his three somewhat estranged sons.
Pere et fils is the first feature from director Michel Boujenah. The film began 20 days of shooting Sept. 17 in rural Charlevoix, with the Quebec leg of the eight-week shoot, including scenes in Montreal, wrapping Oct. 31. Filming then moves to Paris.

The federal government and the Directors Guild of Canada called a meeting for late August to discuss the process that permits foreign directors to shoot spots in Canada, a move that has commercial producers concerned that any policy shift could restrict a major source of revenue.
The meeting, which was canceled after On The Spot made inquiries into the matter, was initially called to address a decision made by Human Resources Development Canada earlier last month to deny a U.S. director on the Industry Films roster access to Canada. According to an HRDC representative, the feds wanted to discuss the ruling and get facts on the case.