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The Phantom Skater
Genre(s): Drama
Logline:
A burned-out hockey scout follows rumors of a hot skating sensation called the Phantom Skater to a remote northern lake where he runs into his ex-wife who runs the only B & B in town.
Synopsis:
Bobby, a bitter hockey scout, is sent up North on a wild goose chase to find the world's fastest skater -- a phantom only glimpsed from a distance racing across a great frozen lake. When he arrives in a village full of comic eccentrics, Bobby checks in to the only hotel in town. Unfortunately the place is run by his ex-wife, still angry at the way their marriage ended.
Things go from bad to worse when Bobby discovers his ex is sleeping with the competition, a smooth-talking scout from Florida who's never even played the game. And the Phantom Skater everyone is talking about seems to be a ruse invented by the villagers to swindle the yokels from the South.
Out in the middle of the giant lake, under a starry sky, Bobby finally catches up to the elusive skater. The Phantom challenges him to a game of one-on-one -- and teaches him what life is really all about.
Author Info:
AARON BUSHKOWSKY writes plays, fiction, and poetry as well as screenplays. His work has received numerous nominations and awards, including nominations for B.C. Book Awards and double finals in Theatre B.C.'s Canadian National Playwriting Competition. He was a Screenwriting Resident at the Canadian Film Centre in 1995, and prior to this participated in the Film Centre's Television Workshop. He has another feature film script and a children's TV series in development.
AARON BUSHKOWSKY, Writer
(604) 872-5001
aaronbushkowsky@telus.net
Prince of Never Say Never, The
Genre(s): 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
Pyramids of Marathon, The
Genre(s): Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Romance
Logline:
The Pyramids of Marathon combines romantic comedy with the spike of a thriller — a contemporary road movie with a menacing stop-over in a one-industry town that forever bonds two stranded travelers.
Synopsis:
The Pyramids of Marathon is a romantic comedy that turns deadly serious. The journey follows the Trans-Canada highway around the autumn curves of Lake Superior to the small Franco-Ontario community of Marathon.
George (Georgina), an artistic thirty-year old, on the mend from a broken heart, is driving home to Winnipeg. She is a passionate photographer, in love with abstract black and white imagery. Lately though, the images in her photographs seem more real than her life.
Traveling the same road, is the dangerously charming Franco, a former biker trying to go straight. Nineteen, he is a sleek leathered rider with an open smile and seemingly no particular destination.
The Trans-Canada Highway washes out and, stranded, George and Franco find themselves sharing the last hotel room in Marathon. It is a one-industry mill town totally dependent on the marketplace, and things have been collapsing for quite some time. Fewer loggers are employed, the fate of the mill is in question and now, a vocal contingent of environmental protesters has arrived, accompanied by the flash and scrutiny of the media. The last thing Marathon needs is more bad news.
With a questionable future, the Town struggles to find a solution to Marathon's slow demise. Led by their mayor, a former hockey hero, Eugene, they will do almost anything to keep their town on the map — maybe even murder — and George and Franco have driven right into their midst.
Author Info:
MICHAELIN McDERMOTT is an independent producer/writer/director. She spent three years as a Service Producer for the Discovery Channel and a decade as a stills photographer on various features, mows and television series. Michaelin has produced and directed a rock video, two half-hour dramas and work-shopped two of her short screenplays. She is presently writing the action-adventure feature The End of Later
MICHAELIN McDERMOTT, Writer
(604) 687-5702
mikenpaul@telus.net