Action / Adventure
Kanada
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama
Logline: The year is 1941. The escapees are German prisoners. The country is Kanada.
Synopsis: Kanada begins in an Alberta POW camp during World War II, where Wesser, a young German fighter pilot, dreams of escaping and making his way home to his loved ones. The breakout is successful; but Wesser finds himself saddled with two unruly companions--Koenigsdorf, a bitter but worldly ideologue whose brutality caused even the SS to court-martial him, and Schussberg, a happy-go-lucky bombardier whose single goal is desertion.
Accustomed to elite combat in the clear blue sky, Wesser soon finds himself mired in a flesh-and-blood ground campaign which is anything but clean. By raft, car, train, and plane, on horseback and on foot, with the aid of unsuspecting civilians and the help of a shaky network of enemy sympathizers, he leads the trio across the prairies, leaving an ever-widening trail of violence behind him. Battling his strong-willed companions, the unforgiving harshness of the frozen landscape, the authorities in their relentless pursuit, and the deception and betrayal practiced by both ally and foe, Wesser gradually sheds his decency and his honor as his noble escape plan degenerates into a struggle to survive at any cost.
An intense drama with suspense, action, unexpected reversals, and a cast of strong characters battling for their lives, KANADA turns the roles of pursuer and quarry, enemy and ally upside down in the ultimate fugitives-on-the-lam adventure, all unfolding against the bleak, majestic winterscape of a heartland still half-wild.
Author Info: ALAN LEVIN, recipient of a 2003 Leo Award (for Best Screenwriting in a Youth or Children's Program or Series) has written episodes of the animated series Yakkity Yak, Yvon of the Yukon, What About Mimi? and D'Myna Leagues and has held two BC Film writer internships, one in the story department of the dramatic series Cold Squad. After working for several years as an aerospace engineer, he earned an MFA in Creative Writing in 1995. He has published stories and poems in numerous journals in Canada and the US, and has a selection of feature film scripts available. These include: Helen Towns - a swing-era singing sensation evolves into a civil rights campaigner; Absolutely Beat - freedom goes toe-to-toe with responsibility as aging Beatniks and their hipster disciples battle the establishment and each other; Redemption Song - a Desert Storm veteran finds it difficult to adjust to civilian life as he struggles to protect his troubled family in racially-charged Los Angeles; and Cross The Line - a young adult drama set in the world of soapbox car racing.
ALAN LEVIN, Writer
(604) 874-9402
alevin@intergate.bc.ca
Or contact Praxis.
The Good Men
Genre: Political/Action/Thriller
Logline: In a race against time a decorated army officer, now a small town cop, desperately searches for the kidnapped son of a US Senator on board a passenger boat loaded with explosives. The same boat that carries his wife and son.
Synopsis: The son of presidential hopeful and US Senator WALTER CONROY, has been kidnapped and believed to be onboard one of the largest passenger boats in the Pacific Northwest on route to Seattle.
JACK WALSH is a decorated army officer, battling with the emotional aftermath of a tragic event in Afghanistan. He now serves on the police force in a small town off the coast of Seattle. The events unfold on the day Jack’s marriage collapses. With seconds remaining, he leaps onboard the ship to begin the desperate hunt for the kidnappers before it reaches the mainland...the same ship his wife and son have just boarded.
Jacks’s ‘point man’ on land is Secret Service Agent FRANK SCOLLARD who narrows the search to two American war veterans. TRAVIS HALSEY, a Vietnam Veteran and DWAYNE RUCKETT, who served as an ‘interrogator’ in Iraq. In Halsey’s apartment, bomb making materials and the reasons behind the ‘mission’ are discovered. Jack is now in a race to save the Senator’s son, his own family and the lives of two thousand passengers.
As night falls, Jack’s wife, HELEN is seized as a hostage just before the boat docks. In a van loaded with explosives and the two hostages, Halsey leads Jack, the police and Secret Service to the
city centre.
Televised live, timed for prime time news, Halsey can now reveal his true plans.
Battling his own fears, Jack Walsh attempts to stop the shocking and tragic conclusion with repercussions far beyond the shattered war veteran’s lives and presidential aspirations.
CHRIS BRITTON, writer
604-714-0114
chris@chrisbritton.ca
Registered WGC/WGA
The Prince of Never Say Never
Genre: Children's, Action/Adventure
Logline: A young boy is kidnapped and taken to a bizarre magical kingdom where he’s forced to befriend its tyrannical teenage ruler.
Synopsis: Ed is twelve years old, and his life is spinning out of control. With his parents heading for divorce court, and his brother and sister openly hating him, Ed runs away only to find himself kidnapped by two misshapen creatures who take him back to the magical kingdom of Never Say Never.
Never Say Never is a land ruled over by a teenage Prince, a physically grotesque young man who, with the help of some magic ‘jawbreakers’, is in complete control of the kingdom. These candies allow the “sucker” to have anything they want. Ed is offered a place of honor and absolute power if he will do just one thing - be the Prince’s friend.
Ed is enthralled with his new home: using magic guns to shoot bullies in a schoolyard, playing with remote controlled people, being waited on hand and foot. It’s all very exciting until spies from the Prince’s arch enemies, “The Tricksters” reveal to Ed what lies beneath the veneer of magic, a Kingdom full of misery and paralyzed by the Prince’s childish whims.
In a daring escape, Ed leaves Never Say Never and seeks refuge with the Trickster King, a kindly old man who rules over an army of mechanical illusions and protects other children from Ed’s world who also escaped the Prince’s “friendship.”
Ed’s betrayal sends the Prince into a homicidal rage; he orders his deadly Skeleton Army to invade the Trickster kingdom and destroy everyone there. By a twist of fate, Ed finds himself in the terrifying position of being the only person who can actually stop the Prince. In a dramatic showdown, Ed battles the Prince for the last remaining jawbreaker. Ed is victorious and restores the kingdom to its rightful rulers, the Prince’s parents. Offered a home and place of honor in Never Say Never, Ed realizes it’s time to return to his own home and start to face the challenges there.
Author Info: ROB THOMPSON has been writing, directing and producing film and video projects for over fifteen years. As a founding member of the award winning company Winter Films he has worked on a wide variety of projects. Two of his best known productions include, Wire, an event where he offered two people $5,000 to live in a chicken cage for one week, and Journey to Little Rock, a documentary that looks at the life of Minnie Jean Brown, one of the famous Little Rock Nine.
ROB THOMPSON, Writer
winter@cyberus.ca
Or contact Praxis