Foundation Features

Principal photography on writer/director Armen Evrensel’s comic sci-fi feature film Space Milkshake began this week in Saskatchewan, the province’s film commission, SaskFilm, announced on Tuesday.

The film, produced by Rob Merilees of Vancouver’s Foundation Features, Holly Baird  and Shane Putzlocher of Regina-based Trilight Entertainment, and Robin Dunne, is about four blue collar astronauts that become trapped on a sanitation station and fall prey to a maniacal mutant rubber duck after all life on earth mysteriously vanishes.

It stars Billy Boyd (Lord of the Rings), Kristin Kreuk (Smallville), Amanda Tapping (Stargate) and Robin Dunne (Sanctuary).

The shoot is taking place in Regina’s Canada Saskatchewan Production Studios from Nov. 14 to Dec.3.

It is being financed by Telefilm Canada, the SaskFilm Equity Investment Program, the Saskatchewan Film Employment Tax Credit, The Movie Network, Movie Central and SPACE. Executive producers are Tim Brown, Amanda Tapping, Billy Boyd and Kristin Kreuk.

Last week and slightly beyond, in a series of small, dark venues, Canadian punk was dragged out from its burial place and praised.

Toronto indie bar The Garrison saw the launch of Dirty, Drunk and Punk, a lavish visual/text study of Toronto’s punk band BFG and its still-smashing leader, Steve Goof. Author Daniel Jones’s great punk novella 1978, reissued by Three O’Clock Press, was feted in Parkdale bar-restaurant Parts and Labour’s basement, along with Jones’s vile and luminous poetry collection The Brave Never Write Poetry, recently rereleased by Coach House Press. And last Tuesday night, Hard Core Logo II was quietly screened for film promoters, cast and crew members at The Royal cinema on College Street.

A small group of movie advertising strategists sat eating popcorn among the chipped-plaster goddesses in the blood-red room, waiting for what should surely be the Canadian movie event of the fall. (A commercial release date has not yet been set.)

Having been screened just once, to rave reviews, in Whistler, B.C., last December, the buzz about Hard Core Logo II is still slowly gathering momentum. The original 1996 mockumentary was director Bruce McDonald’s biggest commercial and artistic success, appearing in all taxonomies of classic or great Canadian films.

Click here to see full article>>

Canadian distributor D Films has signed an exclusive first-look development deal with Vancouver-based producers Rob Merilees’ and Dave Valleau’s Foundation Features, it was announced today by Jim Sherry, president and CEO of D Films.

The long-term development deal will allow Foundation Features to develop projects with top writing and directing talent.

Voted Canadian Producer of the Year by the Canadian Film and Television Producers Association in 2008, Rob Merilees recently created Foundation with partner Dave Valleau (a producer on Capote), a company comprised of the former Infinity Features team which collaborated on dozens of acclaimed feature projects, including Capote, The Snow Walker, and Stone of Destiny.

Valleau was also an executive producer on The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and Shattered.

>>Click here to see full article

Anthony Hopkins and Dustin Hoffman are set to headline the drama "The Song of Names" for Feel Films, Egoli Tossell and Foundation Features says The Hollywood Reporter.

Based on Norman Lebrecht's award-winning novel, the story follows two young Jewish men - one a Brit and the other a Polish violin prodigy, the later vanishing on the eve of his international debut. Four decades on, the Brit gets a clue as to the other man's fate and the mystery begins to unravel.

Vadim Perelman ("House of Sand and Fog") directs from a script by Jeffrey Caine ("The Constant Gardener").

Nick Hirschkorn, Jens Meurer and Dave Valleau will produce while James Horner composes the score.

>>Click here to see full article