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Before Christmas and After
Genre(s): Coming of Age, Dark Comedy
Logline: Broke and at odds about how to get through the holidays, Christmas is beginning to look a little like a disaster for the Donovan family, and then they buy a puppy – and it begins to look like a total catastrophe.
Synopsis:It's Christmas and thirteen year old Charles Donovan is just trying to keep his family from each other's throats. His mother is fed up with work, his brother is in trouble with bikers, his boozing uncle is visiting, and his father has just escaped from prison. When his older brother threatens to leave, Charles goes against his mother's wishes and purchases a dog as a Christmas gift – and gets unexpected results.
Bio:
CLEM MARTINI is a writer based in Calgary. His works for the screen include documentary, long form drama, comedy and series television
CLEM MARTINI, Writer
8428 64th Ave. N.W.
Calgary, AB T3B 4H3
Tel: (403) 288-1138
Fax: (403) 288-1138
martini@ucalgary.ca
Agent: Janine Cheeseman
Aurora Artists Inc.
19 Wroxeter Ave.
Toronto, ON, M4K 1J5
Tel: (416) 463-4634
Or contact Praxis
Bleed
Genre(s): Drama
Logline:
An edgy contemporary drama about three women, their relationship, their sex lives, and a stalker who threatens them all.
Synopsis:
Bleed is a contemporary dramatic thriller about three women facing their demons with men. Recently single, Alexis is a cold, attractive VJ who is unwittingly being stalked by Jason, an obsessed fan. In an attempt to get to her, Jason sleeps with her room-mate Jeanette, discovering that she has a penchant for video taping intimate liaisons. Ines leaves her boyfriend when he says no to keeping their baby. She moves in with Alexis and Jeanette and together they battle with their stuff around men, their friendship and lives threatened by the machinations of the obsessed and disturbed Jason.
Bio:
A graduate of the film program at Simon Fraser University, PENELOPE BUITENHUIS has worked as a director/filmmaker in Canada and Europe for the last 16 years. Her feature film credits as director include Boulevard with Rae Dawn Chong, Lance Henriksen and Lou Diamond Philips; the thriller Dangerous Attraction; and Trouble, written and directed in Berlin, which received Best Film honours at numerous festivals.
In television, Buitenhuis directed the Gemini-nominated CBC MOW Giant Mine, as well as several television series episodes including Hope Island, Madison, Wind at my Back, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, Lonesome Dove and the pilot for Cold Squad. She has also written and directed three documentaries and fifteen short films. She is in development with a new feature script, Punk Not Dead.
PENELOPE BUITENHUIS, Writer
2098 E. 19th Ave.
Vancouver, BC V5N 2J3
Agent: Carl Liberman
The Characters
Tel: (416) 964-8522
Boiler Room, The
Genre(s): Coming of Age
Logline:
What happens to a driven young man who goes after money and success with all he 's got in the "boiler room" of telephone sales?
Synopsis:
What happens to a driven young man who goes after money and success with all he's got in the "boiler room" of telephone sales? At age 17, Dennis Cook is a top salesman in a charity fundraising scam that drives weaker kids to the breaking point. But Dennis is too tough to give up, even after his girlfriend quits when the boss comes on to her, even when he finds out how the guys at the top make the real money, and even when he sees what happens to the 'losers' who can't sell.
Dennis watches with admiration as Gus, the owner, a contemporary Fagan, manipulates thirty anxious teenagers in this fear-ridden sweatshop. Once he's promoted to running the boiler room, it is his turn to make it all happen.
Bio:
JIM HAMM is a Vancouver-based writer, producer and director of documentary films. This script is based on his own short docudrama, Smile and Dial. The Boiler Room reached the finals in BC Film's New Views competition.
JIM HAMM, Writer
3993 Perry Street
Vancouver, BC V5N 3X2
Te: (604) 874-1110
Bottom's Dream
Genre(s): Comedy, Romance, Drama, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Logline:
William Shakespeare solves a murder that his best friend, Hamlet Sadler, had been accused of, and in the process uncovers a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth the First.
Synopsis:
A young (22) William Shakespeare, married to Anne Hathaway (28), is a father to three small children and unsuited to follow in his father's trade as a glover. Stuck in the backwater town of Stratford-upon-Avon, he is at loose ends. Thus...
Shakespeare is caught poaching the rabbits of Sir John Lucy and is viciously flogged for his efforts. He swears, despite the penalty of death, to poach Lucy's prize stag.
A riot at the annual Stratford Fair, caused in part by Shakespeare's friends led by Hamlet Sadler, has town elders on edge and worried about seditious behavior in these troubling times. Before the young men can be apprehended, a merchant is murdered and Sadler is accused.
To complicate matters, Queen Elizabeth is visiting Stratford, ostensibly to raise troops to fight the Spanish Armada, but in reality to secretly gain intelligence about an assassination plot against her life.
Bio:
JIM HAMM is a Vancouver-based writer, producer and director of documentary films. This script is based on his own short docudrama, Smile and Dial. The Boiler Room reached the finals in BC Film's New Views competition.
JIM HAMM, Writer
3993 Perry Street
Vancouver, BC V5N 3X2
Te: (604) 874-1110