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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Filmmakers drawn to Manitoba

By: Randall King / Reel Life

Posted: 09/14/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

TORONTO -- Among the guests at the Manitoba Night Party was Japanese filmmaker Toru Tokikawa, who plans to make an urban thriller titled Single Shot in Winnipeg next spring with producer Juliette Hagopian.

Producer Leah Pasuta of Four Seasons Films, one of the producers of a documentary on the making of Xavier Gens's apocalyptic thriller The Divide, attended along with Divide producer Ross Dinerstein. Pasuta's business card includes addresses in both Santa Monica California and Winnipeg, but she says she intends to be in Winnipeg more often to work on film projects. Pasuta says a final cut of The Divide, starring Michael Biehn and Milo Ventimiglia, has been locked and will hopefully debut at the Sundance Film Festival early in 2011.

Frantic Films producer Jennifer Horvath, the woman behind Frantic's Toronto-based reality productions such as Til Debt Do Us Part, took advantage of a party that bridges the divide between Winnipeg and Toronto.

Horvath and Frantic have just launched an hour-long spin-off of Til Debt called The Princess, which premiered on Slice last week.

"It's a completely different format about self-entitled people who live like they have a lot of money when they don't," Horvath says.

I marvel that they can find willing subjects for shows.

"With Til Death, a lot of them were couples and this show was the last straw for them, whereas on Princess, a lot of them are pretty narcissistic young women and they're pretty sure there's nothing wrong with them."

First-timers to the Manitoba Night party included filmmaker Walter Forsberg, a producer on Matthew Rankin's Negativipeg, and acting teacher-actress-producer Onalee Ames.

I missed seeing producer Wayne Thompson but I didn't miss the buzz saying that a sequel is planned for Keep Your Head Up Kid, The Don Cherry Story, potentially shooting in town in the next few months.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 14, 2010 D3

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