Sullivan Entertainment may have closed shop on Wind at my Back but it continues to forge ahead into the feature film arena with three new in-house productions: Anne: The Animated Movie, Timothy Findley's Famous Last Words and New Haven, based on Isobelle Carmody's novel The Gathering.

Sullivan's new feature film division will produce and finance the projects.

Sullivan Entertainment Distribution, launched last year and headed by managing director Mary Barlow, will be handling international sales.

Production on Anne is already underway, with Lally Cadeau voicing the lead. Other voices featured in the film include Geoff Kahnert, Michael Beaver and Cedric Smith.

Written by Michael MacLennan (Wind at My Back), directed by company principal Kevin Sullivan and produced by Christine Davis, Anne: The Animated Movie is the prequel to the world-famous novel, Anne of Green Gables, about a scrappy orphan who captures the hearts and minds of the citizens of Avonlea, despite her well-known shenanigans, like dying her hair green and getting her best friend drunk.

The $8-million film is the latest addition to Sullivan's established (and hotly contested) franchise property, along with its three live-action feature and miniseries productions of Anne and 91 hours of Road to Avonlea.

All key animation, digital painting and post for the new film, which will be ready for a Christmas release, is being provided by Sullivan Animation's in-house production team.

Famous Last Words is Sullivan's second go at bringing a Findley novel to life on screen (the first was The Piano Man's Daughter).

The film tells the story of how Hollywood screenwriter H.S. Mauberley, who while fleeing from an assassin at the close of WWII, carves his story on the walls of a frozen luxury hotel in the Alps.

Sullivan is adapting the book and directing the film, which is scheduled for production this fall.

Chris Grismer is adapting New Haven, which Sullivan will produce and direct. The film is about a teenager and his recently widowed mother who arrive in the edgy, crime-ridden town of New Haven, where they immediately sense something sinister lurking beneath the surface.

Cuppa develops in-house

Cuppa Coffee Animation is abuzz about Gordon Giraffe and Cinema Sue, two new homegrown, cel-animated series in development.

The two series are among the company's newest proprietary projects, which producers Adam Shaheen and Mike McGowan are toting to MIP-TV in search of presales.

"We're jump-starting the process," says McGowan. "We're going to MIP to make deals with the U.K., France, Germany, U.S. and Canada, and for the territories that remain unsold, we'll bring a distributor in to peddle the shows for the rest of the world."

Gordon Giraffe (26 x 11) is a preschool series that follows the adventures of an over-exuberant giraffe.

"It's a high concept with a lot of merchandising and licensing possibilities," says Shaheen, who coproduces the series with creator and head writer McGowan.

Cinema Sue, currently in development with Teletoon, is a 13-part, half-hour series about a 13-year-old girl who becomes part of the movies she watches. "Criticism is her entry into them, insight is her way out," says Shaheen.

The series, targeted at a 9-12 demo, is jointly produced by Shaheen and McGowan, who also serves as pilot director and head writer.

Cuppa Coffee, which tends mostly to work as a service producer or creative partner, is about to go into production on AAC Kids' mixed-media series Henry's World. Created by McGowan, the 26 x 11-minute series is for broadcast on Family Channel.

The company is also in production on I Spy with partner Scholastic. Based on the popular book series of the same name, the series is directed by McGowan for HBO.

Owning Molony brings Hoffman, Driver to Toronto

Filming has begun on H2O Motion Pictures' Owning Molony, director Richard Kwietniowski's second feature.

Produced by Alliance Atlantis alumnus Andras Hamori, AAC production honcho Seaton McLean and Alessandro Camon, and coproduced by Victoria Hirst (Century Hotel), the film is based on Stung, Gary Ross' best-selling account of the largest single-handed bank fraud in Canadian history.

Philip Seymour Hoffman (Almost Famous) stars as Brian Molony, an unassuming bank manager who quietly embezzled millions over a year and a half to feed his gambling addiction.

Minnie Driver (Return to Me) also stars in the film, which shoots in Toronto March 25 to May 18, with an Atlantic City shoot to follow.

Owning Molony, the third film greenlit by AAC since Hamori set up his H2O banner in May 2000, is also produced in conjunction with Edward R. Pressman Film Corporation.

Ed Pressman and Sean Furst are exec producing.

AAC has distribution.

Kwietniowski's first feature, Love and Death on Long Island, premiered at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, winning the Pierrot Award for best first feature.

Egoyan heads into production on Ararat

Serendipity Point Films is only moments away from going to camera on Atom Egoyan's latest feature, Ararat, produced by Robert Lantos.

Starring Bruce Greenwood (13 Days) and French singer Charles Aznavour, along with Arsinee Khanjian (Felicia's Journey) and Marie-Josee Croze (Maelstrom), the film is shooting in Toronto May 21 to July 27. Ararat, written and directed by Egoyan, is a film within a film about a Canadian doctor's 15-year mission in Turkey. Greenwood plays both the doctor and an actor playing the role of the doctor in a film about his work that takes place within the film.

Sandra Cunningham is coproducing. The budget is rumored to be roughly $10 million.

Alliance Atlantis is distributing.