Cinema Canada (Feb-Mar 1974)

vée) is assistant director on this CarleLamy produced feature. France Pilon finished the editing on Une Nuit en Amérique, Jean Chabot’s second feature produced at ACPAV (l’association co-opérative de productions audio-visuelles) and distributed by Cinépix Inc. Commercial release is planned for spring. Underneath an intricate plot from a detective story, the film deals with life in an urban centre and non-communication in our society. Pierre Harel is completing Bulldozer, a feature that was shot in 1970 and whose production was held up due to financial problems. With a postproduction investment from Les Films Mutuels — who will be distributing the film — Harel was able to resume work on it. The film was shot in a northern Québec mining town with Pauline Julien, Raymond Levesque, and the music of Offenbach, a progressive rock group. Commercial release is expected for February. Pierre Rose directed Y’en fera jamais d’autre (working title only) for SMR productions. This comedy stars Claude Michaud and Louise Portal (Taureau). Distribution agreements have been signed with Les Films Mutuels. Jean-Claude Lord (Délivrez-nous du mal, Les Colombes) is currently editing his third feature, Bingo. Co-produced by Les Productions Mutuelles and Les Films Jean-Claude Lord, it was backed by an investment from the CFDC. Two young Québec actors are in the leading roles: Anne-Marie Provencher and Réjean Guénette. Also starring Jean Duceppe, Denise Pelletier, Yoland Guérard, Gilles Pelletier, Willie Lamédthe, Alexandra Stewart and Louise Dussault. Luc-Michel Hannaux, a young filmmaker who directed a few dramatic shorts, is starting on his first feature entitled L’Etat Solide (“solid state’’). The script is from Michel Garneau, LucMichel Hannaux, and Jean-Pierre Lefebvre. Foreseen in the leading roles are Michelle Rossignol (La Conquéte), Francine Racette (Alien Thunder), and the one and only Daniel Pilon. Director of Photography: Peter Hartmann, producer: Don Buschbaum. The science fiction feature should be shot on location in northern Québec and Montreal. Werner Nold, the NFB’s best known editor, is working on La Gammick, a feature directed by Jacques Godbout ([XE-13). The story follows a part-time québécois killer who is used by the American Mafia to kill Frank Anastasia, the head of Murder Incorporated. The producer is Marc Beaudet (Mon Oncle Antoine, O.K. Laliberté) the director of photography, Jean-Pierre Lachapelle and the sound engineer: Richard Besse. The cast includes Marc Legault, Dorothy Berriman, Pierre Gobeil and Serge Thériault. 10 Cinema Canada Festivals, awards and other wholesome trivia Garson, Ontario’s own Black Fly Film Festival mid-November featured such luminaries of the local silver screen as Peter Rowe with Neon Palace, Keith Lock and Jim Anderson with Scream of a Butterfly, Base Tranquility, Work, Bike & Eat, Arnold, and Works in Progress, and Clarke Mackey with The Only Thing You Know. Insight Productions’ Thoroughbred won in the subsequent competition. The festival’s Canadian and experimental slant was assured by the participation of the Can. Filmmakers Distribution Centre. Four CBC-TV programs won a total of five awards at the Yorkton International Film Festival, an annual affair held in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. Graham Parker’s The Veteran and The Lady won for best direction as well as for best screenplay to Charles Israel. The award for best TV film feature went to Grey Owl produced and directed by Nancy Ryley; Herbert Helbig won the Yorkton award for best music (background score for the documentary series on Lester Pearson); and the award for best animation went to a CBC French network children’s film, La Création des Oiseaux. The festival was adjudicated by the CBC’s Betty Zimmerman, Les Wedman of the Vancouver Sun, and Terry Marner, head of the motion picture department, University of Regina. The Independent Filmmakers’ Cooperative of Montreal participated in the International Film Festivals of Bordeaux and Toulouse with a five hour programme of independently made, non-narrative Canadian films. Works by Vincent Grenier, Morley Markson, Jorge Guerra, Mike Collier, David Rimmer, Lois Siegel and Bob Cowan were chosen as examples of this contemporary genre. Similar Canadian film retrospectives have been presented by the Cooperative in the past four years at the Locarno, Mannheim, Grenoble, Berlin, Edinburgh, Bilbao, San Sebastian, Hamburg, Oberhausen, Rotterdam and Philadelphia festivals, under the sponsorship of the Department of External Affairs. The French Federation of CineClubs, in collaboration with the Conseil québécois pour la Diffusion du Cinéma, organized a week-end of Québec cinema in Valence, France late November. Director Jacques Leduc accompanied his two features On est loin du soleil and Tendresse Ordinaire, and went on to preside over a week of québécois cinema at Lyons. Other filmmakers represented at these events were JeanPierre Lefebvre, Jean-Guy Noél, Gilles Groulx, Michel Moreau, Roger Frappier and Denys Arcand. The National Film Board of Canada picked up four more awards at Columbus, Ohio (A Question of Television Violence, Ballet Adagio, Street Musique and Citizen Harold) and Crawley Films of Ottawa received three more U.S. awards, this time from the Industrial Management Society for some training films they produced for our friends in Washington. In its 35 years of operation, Crawley has produced 2,200 motion pictures (500 of them in French), 650 TV commercials and public service promos, and is increasing this output at a rate of 40 to 50 films per year. 200 awards have been won by 117 of its productions at national and international film competitions. Canada’s biggest private producer is also increasingly involved with producing and distributing Canadian features. And at the Ninth Annual Chicago Film Festival a Golden Hugo award in the documentary category went to CTV’s Canada: Five Portraits, The Prairies, while Don Shebib’s Between Friends represented us in the feature category. Silve Hugos went to the NFB’s The Family That Dwelt Apart and Street Musique, Insight Productions’ Life Times Nine, an OECA’s Hinduism. Mark Sobel and Robin Lee of Willowdale, Ontario won a special award in the high school filmmakers category, with their film Hello Friend. Coming up in April is the Ontario Film Association’s fifth annual Film Showcase to be held from April 3 to 7, 1974 at Geneva Park, Ontario. During the four day affair, fourteen of Canada’s leading film distributors will be on hand to preview the latest and most relevant 16mm films available in this country today. Approximately 250 persons attended las year’s event, and this year organizers are expecting an even larger turnout. Film librarians, public librarians, audio-visual coordinators, media consultants, educators and representatives of private, public and governmental agencies who are responsible for the purchase and rental of 16mm films are welcome. For further information please contact the Ontario Film Association, Box 521, Barrie, Ontario. And filmmakers should be preparing to enter the festivals of their choice from the list too long to print here, including the Sth International Experimental Film Competition to be held in Knokke-Heist, Belgium, in late December. Why mention it so early? The deadline for applications is October Ist, that leaves eight months to think up, start, and finish a film, allowing for monetary and other difficulties. For further information on this and every other festival please contact the Festivals Office set up to assist you in choosing festivals to enter, pre-select entries to more important fests, etc. (Write: Film Festival Bureau, Department of the Secretary of State, 66 Slater Street, Suite 1816, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0M5S.)