Feature film Max and the Lioness will move production to the Mick Phillips St. Station Casino in Winnipeg June 4-6, the first production ever to do so. A coprod between Winnipeg's Buffalo Gal Pictures, Montreal's Les Film de l'Isle and Moncton's Transmar Films, the $3.2-million "twisted psycho thriller" follows a couple on the road in a story of complicated relationships that culminates in murder.

The casino scene "involves huge stages and thousands of people. It's an integral scene, a huge part of the film," says Shawn Watson, producer for Buffalo Gal. "In the film, it's somewhere near Yellowknife on an aboriginal reserve and no such casino exists. It's an important part of the film; we meet a central character in the movie in that scene and slowly unfold the drama about to take place in the casino."

The production began filming April 23 in Moncton, which also stands in for Quebec City, and will wrap the New Brunswick leg of the shoot mid-May.

The Winnipeg shoot runs June 4-17, with post concluding in time for the November delivery date. Locations around Winnipeg double for Thunder Bay, Yellowknife and even the Prairies. "It's visually important to the film to feel like it's taking place across the country," says Watson.

The French distributor for theatrical is K FILMS Amerique; an English distributor has not yet been settled on. Max and the Lioness has been presold to Superchannel, TMN-The Movie Network and Showcase.

Les Films de l'Isle producer on the project is Ian Boyd and Transmar producer is Rodrigue Jean, who is also writer/director on the project. Buffalo Gal's Phyllis Laing and Boyd are exec producers.

The project has received funding from Telefilm Canada, Film New Brunswick, SODEC, Manitoba Film and Sound and provincial tax credits from all three provinces used in the shoot.

NSI puts features first

Poor Super Man, a graduate of the National Screen Institute's Features First program, will commence shooting in Winnipeg May 7, with production scheduled to wrap June 8.

Kim Todd, ex of Credo Entertainment in Winnipeg, is attached as exec producer. Her company, Original Pictures of Winnipeg, is coproducing the feature with realtime films of Edmonton.

Brad Fraser, playwright of the original stage-bound Poor Super Man, is attached to direct and has adapted the screenplay.

"I'm proud that Poor Super Man is going to be the first picture that Original Pictures makes," says Todd. "Poor Super Man is a very moving love story and a provocative script. Brad is an active member of the gay community. What appealed is that the love story is wonderful, and the fact that it is a gay love story made no difference to me. There's always a desire to label; we strongly think that 'love story' is the pigeonhole.

"The translation from stage to film is like translating it into a different language," says Todd. "In film, the camera brings you so close, you have such an intimate relationship with the characters. The audience expects the characters to be natural and real, so they have to be fleshed out and made natural. That was the change."

The production originally had a late winter/early spring shoot scheduled, "knowing that's a slow time," says Todd. "But with the SAG strike that's been inverted, everyone's trying to shoot before the strike. It's like having gone through the looking glass."

TMN-The Movie Network and Corus Premium Television share first window, with ChumCity holding free TV rights. Montreal's Film Tonic is on board as distrib.

Original also has two television series underway, both of which have secured licence fees but have yet to complete financing.

Guinevere Jones, a 13-part, half-hour tween series licenced to YTV, is about a high school girl who is the reincarnation of the Arthurian queen.

Emma, a coproduction with Montreal's CineGroupe, is a 26-episode, half-hour, live-action/animation kids series based on the book There's A Rainbow In My Closet and licensed by CBC.

Another full-length feature developed through the Features First program recently wrapped principal photography. Inertia, from Winnipeg writer/director Sean Garrity and producer Brendon Sawatzky, finished its Winnipeg shoot April 11.

Sawatzky says the goal of the film is "to show people that are in relationships that are failing and trying to continue with them. It's like an anti-romantic comedy."

Preparation for the film included six months of improvising with the actors - "things that would happen in a typical relationship, just people talking and doing things," says Sawatzky, "[Garrity] had hours and hours of that on video and he took the best of all of it. Now the actors carry that into these roles."

Wrapping up

The Kevin DeWalt exec-produced production dominating Winnipeg, Patrick Swayze's Without A Word, is scheduled to wrap at the end of April. The dramatic feature, which also has the distinction of being the first film Minds Eye Pictures has ever bought to Winnipeg, stars Swayze and wife Lisa Niemi.

Tippy toes

Winnipeg filmmaker Vonnie von Helmolt has a 90-minute ballet special in the works. Inspired by a dance adaptation of the classic horror tale which the Royal Winnipeg Ballet produces every year, the special, Dracula - The Ballet, will be directed by local hero Guy Maddin.