News

As we roll into Berlin where War Witch (aka Rebelle) (Isa: Films Distribution) by Kim Nguyen is in Competition. While it’s Kim’s 4th feature, this is the first of his films to have a world premiere at an international festival. This is exceptional as well because the last time the Canadians had a Canadian director in Competition at the Berlinale was in 1999 with Emporte-Moi ! Guy Madden’s Keyhole holds a Berlinale Special slot. Guy is Canada’s cultural ambassador in Berlin and a regular at the Festival and sat on the Berlinale’s Official Jury last year – with Isabella Rossellini.

Sheldon Larry’s Leave It on the Floor (Isa: Arrow) is a U.S.-Canadian Co-pro which has played Laff, Tiff and is now in the Panorama.

Films in the Forum include Green Laser by another Berlinale favorite, John Greyson. Green Laser is his 8th film at the festival. His first was Urinal in 1989. Denis Côté’s Bestiary, straight from Sundance, and Francine, the first narrative feature by Melanie Shatzky (Canada) and Brian M. Cassidy (U.S.) the team that directed Patron Saints (Tiff 2011, Rotterdam 2012) are are all in the Forum.

4 films are in the Forum Expanded:

Chris Kennedy’s 349 (For Sol LeWitt)(1min long!) in Tiff 2011 Wavelength Program: Schedule

American Colour, Tiff 2011 Wavelength Program: Schedule

Road Movie by Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatzkystarring Melissa Leo (Frozen River) Tiff 2011 Future Projections: Schedule, a 6-channel installation produced by The National Film Board of Canada. Elle Flanders’ documentary Zero Degrees of Separation was screened in the Forum section of the Berlin Festival in 2005.

The Tiny Ventriloquist by Steve Reinke, (with contribution from James Richards). The installation will be presented at the McLuhan Salon of the Canadian Embassy

In Berlinale Shorts Competition, The Man That Got Away by Trevor Anderson is his second film in this section (2009 The Island). His doc short The High Leve Bridge was in Sundance in 2010.

All we have to do now is wait to see which prizes go to them! Last year Canadian productions came away with three.

Perspective Canada will present 16 titles at the Market:

Café de Flore - Jean-Marc Vallée, Films Distribution, France

China Heavyweight (Straight from Sundance) - doc - Yung Chang Cat & Docs, France & EyeSteelFilms

Décharge (Trash) - Benoit Pilon, eOne

Edwin Boyd - Nathan Morlando, Myriad Pictures, USA

French Kiss - Sylvain Archambault ,Delphis

Goon - Michael Dowse, Myriad Pictures, USA

La Peur de l'eau - Gabriel Pelletier, eOne

Marécages - Guy Édoin, Fortissimo Films

Monsieur Lazhar - Philippe Falardeau, Films Distribution, France

Nuit #1 - Anne Émond, Wide Management, France

Payback (Straight from Sundance) - doc- Jennifer Baichwal, National Film Board of Canada

Pink Ribbons - doc - Léa Pool, National Film Board of Canada

Pour l'amour de dieu - Micheline Lanctôt, Filmoption

Roméo onze - Ivan Grbovic, Reprise Films

Surviving Progress - doc- Mathieu Roy + Harold Crooks, National Film Board of Canada

Take this Waltz - Sarah Polley, TF1 International, France...

Berlinale Co-Production Market

Thirty-eight film projects from twenty-five countries have been selected for the eighth Berlinale Co-Production Market which will run from February 13 to 15, 2011. The producers and directors of these projects will meet with 450 potential co-production and financing partners during the event. No Indian project has found a place in the 38 projects that have been chosen out of 352 entries.

Three projects have also been chosen for the “Rotterdam-Berlinale Express”, in collaboration with CineMart Rotterdam. These projects will participate in both the CineMart and the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

In cooperation with the Berlinale Talent Campus, eleven projects by newcomers have been selected from 270 additional entries for the “Talent Project Market”.

The official selection of projects for the Berlinale Co-Production Market 2011:

Love Isreal (dir: Julia von Heinz), 2Pilots Filmproduction, Germany

They Are All Dead (dir: Beatriz Sanchis), Avalon P.C., Spain

Saints (dir: Seyfi Teoman), Bulut Film, Turkey

Darkness by Day (dir: Martin Desalvo), Doménica Films,...

A group of Quebecker films have been presented at Paris at the Forum des images for four days.

Until November 28, Parisians and also possible French distributors can see 14 Quebecker feature films.

These films are:

* Une vie qui commence, by Michel Monty.

* L'enfant prodige, by Luc Dionne.

* À l'origine d'un cri, by Robin Aubert.

* Route 132, by Louis Bélanger.

* Piché: entre ciel et terre, by Sylvain Archambault.

* Journal d'un Coopérant, by Robert Morin.

* 10 ½, by Daniel Grou.

* Filière 13, by Patrick Huard.

* The Trotsky, by Jacob Tierney.

* Jo pour Jonathan, by Maxime Giroux.

* Les 7 jours du talion, by Daniel Grou.

* Trois temps après la mort d'Anna, by Catherine Martin.

* Curling, by Denis Côté.

* Incendies, de Denis Villeneuve.

Finally, of all these 14 films, only Incendies has a planned released in France, which will be on January 12, 2011.

Toronto -- Quebec director Sylvain Archambault's "Piche': Entre Ciel et Terre," has crossed the $3 million boxoffice mark in Quebec after nearly one month in local theaters, distributor Tva Films said Thursday.

The biopic about a Quebec pilot who made world headlines in August 2001 when he glided a crippled jetliner, with 304 people on board, to a safe landing on the Azores bowed on July 7 in the French-speaking province with 95 dates.

The drama, which stars Michel Cote and Maxime LeFlaguais, chronicles how Piche' faced not only immediate hero worship, but revelations about time spent in a U.S. jail in the 1980s for landing a small aircraft filled with drugs on a Georgia airstrip.

The film chronicles Piche' going into alcohol rehab to come to terms with the sudden media glare and long-hidden personal shortfalls.

Written by Ian Lauzon and directed by Archambault, "Piche': Entre Ciel et Terre" has become the...

Two days ago, Telefilm Canada had announced that 10 of 27 upcoming films will be in French. What follow is the list of these films.

L’appât – Comedy, Quebec-France co-production, directed by Yves Simoneau and written by Yves Simoneau and William Reymond. Poirier is a particularly inept detective, none of whose colleagues want to work with him. However, the French police, in concert with the Sureté du Québec, assign a very unusual officer, Marc Ventura, to work alongside Poirier... (Producers: Josée Vallée and Jean-Pierre Guérin; distributor: Alliance Vivafilm). The project is also receiving Telefilm support through the performance envelope.

Café de Flore – Drama, Quebec-France co-production, written and directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. This is first and foremost an incredibly beautiful love story between a man and a woman, as well as that between a mother and her son. (Producers: Pierre Even and Jean-Marc Vallée; distributor: Alliance Vivafilm).

En terrains connus – Drama written and directed by Stéphane Lafleur.

TORONTO -- Suzanne Girard's BBR Prods. has relaunched itself under the name DS Films.

Girard, who launched BBR in 1981, will remain CEO and executive producer. The new company will be backed by parent DS Prods., which is led by Canadian actor Roc Lafortune, Quebec producer-director Sylvain Archambault and Alain Lemieux, president of the World Sports Alliance.

Girard, whose recent credits include the Susan Sarandon starrer "Emotional Arithmetic", said DS Films plans to produce a slate of four to six English-language movies during the next three years with combined budgets of CAN$60 million ($56.5 million).

A year ago, Girard severed her six-year partnership with Montreal-based concert promoter L'Equipe Spectra, which included the successful TV franchise "Armistead Maupin's Further Tales of the City" and its French-language counterpart, "Chroniques de San Francisco".