Telefilm Canada is supporting 12 new English-language film projects through its Canada Feature Film Fund, it announced yesterday. More than $8 million has been invested. Featuring several coming-of-age stories, the 12 films are:
- Hunting Pignut (Martine Blue) — What’s Pignut? Who, actually — a friend of 15-year-old Bernice’s late father. And he’s made off with Dad’s ashes. Bernice sets out from her home in Black Gut, Newfoundland, to find the ashes and more.
- Maudie (Aisling Walsh) — See here for our earlier coverage of this biopic on Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis, and here for the story of the casting call for her dog.
- nineteenseventysomething (Bruce McDonald) — 1976, the U.S. Bicentennial, to be exact, but in Nova Scotia, all 15-year-old Kit can think about is running away to join his mother.
- Goon: Last of the Enforcers (Jay Baruchel) — We reported on this right at the beginning. An insurance agent reclaims his hockey glory.
- Mean Dreams (Nathan Morlando) — Looks like they found their cast. Two teens hit the road with a bag of cash taken from one boy’s crooked cop father.
- Milton’s Secret (Barnet Bain) — A boy, his grandfather, and learning to live in the present.
- Operation Insanity (Érik Canuel) — Another boy, another grandfather — this time, with a missing girl and a band of war veterans. Read some background on this here.
- The Other Half (Joey Klein) — He’s grieving, she’s bipolar; can they build a life together?
- Juliana and the Medicine Fish (Jeremy Torrie) — Another coming-of-age story, as a 12-year-old wonders whether to save the family business by trapping a legendary fish, or leave it in peace for the greater good.
- Loneliness of a Sewer Trucker (Hakan Sahin) — The “offbeat story” of a man’s entire life spent in an isolated oilfield community.
- Lovesick (Tyson Caron) — Dash still loves Lauren, but she’s engaged to Mark, whom she hardly knows, and then Nora enters the picture . . .
- Entanglement (Jason James) — Ben searches for meaning, falls in love with Hanna, who could’ve been his adopted sister, and realizes everything is more interconnected than it seems.
(Photo: Scarletina)