C
Capital Murder
GENRE: Drama
LOGLINE:
Ross MacKay, a brilliant but troubled young lawyer. battles to save the lives of two men - the last two men condemned to execution by hanging in Canada.
SYNOPSIS:
Ross MacKay, recently seperated from his wife and children, is an addictive gambler and alcoholic. He’s just lost his first capital murder case and his client, Ronald Turpin, awaits a reprieve on death row.
An FBI witness and his girlfriend are brutally murdered while hiding out in a Toronto rooming house. Circumstantial evidence points to a Detroit gangster named Arthur Lucas, black, raised in poverty with a low IQ. He is extradited to Toronto to stand trial before an all white jury. Ross is forced to take on this risky and high profile murder case.
Judge Maddock, Crown Prosecutor Henry Bull and local MP Mickey Carroll, believe in punishment by hanging. Convinced of Lucas’s innocence, Ross must not only battle the legal, criminal and political systems that uphold the death penalty but his own struggles with alcohol and gambling debts.
With the help of lawyer and friend Alan Freeman and the influential newspaper reporter, Sarah Wright, Ross becomes a driving force fueling the radical changes necessary to abolish capital punishment in Canada.
CAPITAL MURDER is based on the true story of the most exciting year in Canadian criminal history. On a cold December night, Ross continues to fight up to the final minutes for the lives of Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin as they stand back to back on the gallows while a riot rages outside the walls of Toronto’s Don Jail.
CHRIS BRITTON, WRITER
604-714-0114
chris@chrisbritton.ca
or contact Praxis
CARELESS
Logline: When a June heat wave hits Toronto just days before the Canada Day long weekend, a surge on
the power grid throws systems into a mysterious, momentary chaos. The reverberations are felt everywhere, and propel three sets of characters towards interconnected and darkly comic searches for family, faith and air conditioning.
Synopsis:
Taking place in the week leading up to the Canada Day long weekend, Careless offers a darkly comic snapshot of a Toronto summertime, its stories forming a ragged, urban and unabashedly Canadian symphony. While the city sweats and writhes in the uncomfortable languor of a record-breaking heat wave, a desperate delirium infiltrates the overheated consciousness of its citizens.
CRIS DA SILVA, a 28-year-old bank manager, has a restless, manic energy mirroring that of the feverish city. He loves his work, embracing it even as it jeopardizes his dysfunctional relationship with his wife CRYSTAL and their newborn son FOSTER. When a mysterious power surge hits the city and causes his ATM to go down, Cris latches onto the small, manageable space behind the machine as a way to grasp some control in an otherwise uncontrollable, spiraling existence.
The brownout heightens tensions between DIANE McCLELLAND (45) and her partner ANNIE LIM (35). Cris’s former boss, Diane is now an operations exec at head office. She’s struggling to deliver some bad news to her protégé, and almost misses her appointment with Annie at an insemination clinic. Annie, the intuitive and emotional heart of the couple, longs for motherhood, while Diane is uncertain about parenthood and worries about the resulting loss of control that seems inevitable. While Diane retreats into her work, struggling with the power and responsibility of management and control, Annie extends herself in the opposite direction, making a secret connection with a potential sperm donor.
That donor is LEE ROUVAS (42), a handsome gay cop. When the power surge knocks out a big portion of the traffic light grid, Lee is called into action directing traffic in the heart of the financial district. A vital, physical man living in stuffy confines of his family home, Lee wants a child and is ready to navigate the complex possibilities of co-parenting. While outwardly self-assured and confident, Lee is facing the solitude and loneliness of midlife, while still struggling with his identity as a gay man in the context of his traditional family.
As the holiday weekend approaches, the oppressive heat just won’t break – and it gets to everyone. For Cris, things at the bank go from bad to worse, and with his wife driving him nuts, he is having a hard time thinking straight. No one seems to understand the peace he feels in the dark quiet room behind his ATM, doling out cash to strangers.
As the sun rises on Canada Day, anxieties regarding family, connection and identity come to a boil. Cris can’t figure out how he wants to spend his days off, but he knows it’s not barbequing steaks at the annual Da Silva family reunion in Wasaga Beach. Then when Diane finally shares her big news, he knows exactly what to do. Cris puts a plan in motion that brings the three intersecting stories to more than one explosive end as that evening’s fireworks illuminate the sky. The lives of Diane, Lee and Annie are changed forever.
CASSANDRA NICOLAOU, writer
cassandra@fightingfishpictures.com
Or contact Praxis.
Charlie's War
Genre(s): Drama • Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Logline:19 year-old Charlie Boyle falls under the spell of a charismatic white supremacist and tracks down an anti-racist vigilante who is trying to kill him.
Synopsis:
Charlie Boyle is a high school dropout with attitude to burn. Playing guitar with his new band is the only thing that truly turns his crank. When the band finds itself without a place to practice, Karl Hoffert lets them use an old cabin on his property. Hoffert has a secret agenda -- he is a white supremacist. Two members of Charlie's band belong to his National Front and he figures the music will attract kids to the movement. But he's going to have to bide his time; Charlie has made it clear he 's not interested in playing in the 'house band'.
When Charlie's father finds out what he's up to, he orders Charlie to stay away from Hoffert. But Charlie has never listened to his father and he's not about to start now, not when the band has landed its first gig and he 's fallen in love with Hoffert's 17 year-old daughter, Julia. Charlie storms out of the house and into Hoffert's welcoming arms.
Julia knows Charlie is making a mistake in trusting her father; she begs him to get out before it's too late. But when an anti-racist vigilante blows up the band's cabin, nearly killing a little girl, the die is cast. Charlie joins forces with Hoffert in a hunt for their enemy. The hunt sets off a deadly chain of events that forces Charlie to confront his dark side before it destroys both himself and the love he has found with Julia.
Author Info:
MICHAEL BETCHERMAN is a Toronto-based screenwriter. His first feature film script, Still Waters, won the Gold Award for Best Thriller at the Houston Film Festival (WorldFest Houston). His television credits include Street Legal, Side Effects and Exhibit A. He is currently writing and producing Justice Denied, a 90 minute pilot for TNT about the wrongfully convicted.
MICHAEL BETCHERMAN, Writer
142 Robert Street
Toronto, ON
M5S 2K3
(416) 924-2143
(416) 924-1617 Fax
bumper@interlog.com
Cryin' Time
Genre(s): Comedy, Drama
Logline:Cryin' Time is a boisterous hard-driving romantic comedy set in rural Nova Scotia. Dreams are what movies are made of, and the theme of this feature film/M.O.W. is taking chances, making choices and risking it all for a dream.
Synopsis:Country music is the musical mythic archetype that surround sounds the action and underscores the changing world of the characters in a place that has turned in on itself, as past, present and future are tossed against each other in the tilt-a-whirl pursuit of love, lust, and ultimately, the control of personal destinies; whether the battleground is a sexy lingerie mafia with Mary Kay fantasies, a circus ride repair sculpture, or a white trash trailer filled with cardboard cut-outs of the gods and goddesses of country music.
To quote a recent Telefilm reader's report, "What we have here is a strong central character, an interesting metaphor and a rich collection of incidents. It's a story of personal discovery with a delightful edge of black comedy; a hard drinking, sexually charged world peopled by engaging and often funny characters; this could make a winning movie."
Author Info:
T.H. HATTE is a nationally produced playwright, screenwriter, and director. Mr. Hatte's screenplay Finn's Rock is currently in development with Salter Street Films. The documentary he directed, Alana, was broadcast on Vision Television in January.
A writer of over a dozen half-hour dramas on film and video, including A Fist A Nail and Two Windows, which was produced when Mr. Hatte was a writer resident at the Canadian Film Centre, and winner of the Silver Bar Award, at the Austrian Film Festival.
Most recently, Moose Meat, a half-hour drama written and directed by Mr. Hatte, was broadcast on CBC's Sunday Arts and Entertainment program, and his stage play, The Last Words Of Duct Schultz toured theatres across Canada.
Mr. Hatte's teen feature film script, Anchor Zone (produced by Red Ochre Productions of Newfoundland) was released theatrically in Canada through Norstar Entertainment, and distributed around the world through Alliance Releasing.
T.H. Hatte lives in Halifax.
T.H. HATTE, Writer
PO Box 31110
Halifax, NS B3K 5T9
(902) 453-0347
thatte@ns.sympatico.ca