Tag Archives: Back Alley Films

Cineflix Media partners with Adrienne Mitchell’s BentFrame Film & TV

From a media release:

Cineflix Media Inc. has announced it is partnering with celebrated showrunner, director, and producer Adrienne Mitchell and her newly launched production company BentFrame Film & TV.

The partnership gives Cineflix Media the first option to co-produce original content developed by Mitchell, while providing BentFrame with access to development support from Cineflix Studios. In addition, Cineflix Rights will retain exclusive first-look rights to distribute the shingle’s content internationally.

Based in Toronto, BentFrame will develop and produce ambitious, provocative, female-driven dramatic series and feature films for global audiences. The company already has several projects in development with broadcasters and international co-producers. Zach Marcovici, also previously of Back Alley Films, joins BentFrame as Director of Development and Production. The announcement follows Cineflix Media’s recent acquisition of Back Alley Film Productions Ltd.—co-founded by Adrienne Mitchell—along with its library of content IP.

“Adrienne has a powerful vision that aligns with Cineflix Media’s content strategy. We’re delighted to continue our support for Adrienne and Zach through a development and distribution agreement with Adrienne’s new company BentFrame,” said Peter Emerson, President, Cineflix Media.

“I’m thrilled to be working with Cineflix Media to tap into today’s exciting and thought-provoking story landscape. I’m inspired to tell stories with diverse and unique perspectives that shine a light on untold narratives. I look forward to a fruitful collaboration with Cineflix Media in creating landmark television and film that will resonate with Canadian and global audiences,” said Adrienne Mitchell, BentFrame Film &TV.

Adrienne Mitchell is an award-winning film and television director and showrunner who has been creating auteur-driven drama series, and helming them as lead director, for more than three decades. Mitchell’s many achievements include the critically acclaimed series Durham County; the mystery-thriller series Bellevue, starring Oscar®-winner Anna Paquin; and, the WWII-era series Bomb Girls, and the MOW Bomb Girls: Facing the Enemy. Mitchell is currently the Executive Producer and a Director on the fourth season of global hit series Coroner. In 2017, she was honoured with the Nell Shipman Award for directorial achievement and for advancing gender equity in the entertainment industry. Mitchell is also the recipient of the prestigious Excellence in Production Award from WIFT Toronto.

BentFrame Film & TV joins Cineflix Media’s growing community of talented creative partners including a recently launched joint venture with Morwyn Brebner and Andrew Akman’s Husk Media.

BentFrame Film & TV is represented by Great North Artists Management Inc.

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Cineflix Media acquires Back Alley Films and its library of content IP

From a media release:

Cineflix Media Inc. has announced the acquisition of Back Alley Film Productions Ltd., along with the company’s award-winning library of content IP. After a three-decade collaboration creating and producing internationally-acclaimed TV series for Canadian and American networks, Back Alley Films co-founders Adrienne Mitchell and Janis Lundman have decided to explore new opportunities.

Cineflix will absorb Back Alley Films’ operations and acquire its programming assets, including the company’s ownership interest in celebrated series Bellevue starring Oscar® award-winner Anna Paquin, WWII drama Bomb Girls, and the international award-winning Durham County.

The acquisition also includes Back Alley Films’ stake in global hit series Coroner—the highly-rated crime procedural’s fourth season launched on CBC in January. Back Alley Films and Muse Entertainment have co-produced the series with Cineflix Studios since 2019, and Cineflix Rights is the exclusive global distribution partner. A huge international success, Coroner airs in more than 150 territories on networks and platforms including The CW Network (US), NBCUniversal International Networks, Sky Witness (UK), Globo (Brazil), and Nine Network (Australia).

“It has been such a pleasure to collaborate with Janis and Adrienne over the past 20 years as they grew Back Alley Films. I’m such a huge fan of their work that we jumped at the opportunity to acquire the company’s IP and also to continue to support them in any new projects or endeavors,” said Peter Emerson, President, Cineflix Media.

A visionary producer with a track record for delivering award-winning dramatic content, Lundman was the recipient of the prestigious Excellence in Production Award from WIFT Toronto and currently serves as Chair of the National Cultural Human Resources Council (CHRC). Lundman will put her 30+ years of industry experience to work as she transitions to her new role as a consultant.

“I’ve been extremely fortunate to work with amazing creatives and network executives over the past three decades and I’m incredibly proud of all the shows Back Alley Films has produced. I can’t think of a better company than Cineflix to take the reins and shepherd in new possibilities for the Back Alley IP — there are plenty of exciting opportunities ahead for us all,” said Janis Lundman

Mitchell is an award-winning film and television producer and director/showrunner who has been creating auteur-driven drama series for over the last 30 years. She received the 2017 Nell Shipman Award for directorial achievement and for advancing gender equity in the entertainment industry as well as the prestigious Excellence in Production Award from WIFT Toronto. Mitchell has launched BentFrame Film & TV, a new production company that will develop and produce ambitious, provocative, and diverse female-driven dramatic series and feature films.

“I am incredibly proud of the body of work that came from my partnership with Janis Lundman under the Back Alley Films banner. Our goals were to push creative boundaries and tell diverse and authentic stories, making for thought-provoking and compelling film and television. I am thrilled that Cineflix Media, an industry powerhouse, has acquired our library and I feel they are the perfect fit to represent our stories for the global marketplace,” said Adrienne Mitchell.

Back Alley Films and BentFrame Film & TV are represented by Great North Artists Management Inc.

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Cameras roll on Season 3 of Coroner

From a media release:

Muse Entertainment, Back Alley Films and Cineflix Studios have started production in Toronto on season three of the hit CBC original drama series CORONER. Inspired by the best-selling series of books by M.R. Hall, CORONER is created for television by Morwyn Brebner (Saving Hope, Rookie Blue) and stars Serinda Swan (Inhumans, Ballers) as coroner Dr. Jenny Cooper. Joining the cast this season are Mark Taylor (Flashpoint) as Clark, a crown attorney working with Jenny on a new inquest, and Uni Park (Kim’s Convenience) as Melanie, the coroner office’s new pathologist. Season three will provide audiences with two additional one-hour episodes (10×60) and is scheduled to debut on CBC and the free CBC Gem streaming service in Winter 2021.

CORONER was the highest-rated new drama series premiere on CBC in more than four years when it premiered in Canada in winter 2018. Following that, NBCUniversal International Networks (NBCUINN) acquired the rights to all three seasons of the series for multiple territories from global distributor Cineflix Rights. The third season will premiere across NBCUIN’s channel portfolio in Sub-Saharan Africa, France, Spain, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Latin America and Brazil. In Germany, season three will premiere on 13TH Street. The CW Network launched season one of CORONER in the U.S. earlier this summer to strong ratings, with season two set for a fall primetime slot. In the UK, CORONER premieres on Sky Witness, with season two currently on air and season three to follow next year. Cineflix Rights has also sold the series to the UK’s Channel 4 for its More 4 channel.

CORONER season three returns with coroner Jenny Cooper moving past her trauma and embracing her whole self. In the process of healing, she and live-in boyfriend Liam are now separated, while Detective Donovan McAvoy faces his mortality in a new way. Ross stumbles his way through identity challenges, while Gordon hallucinates the possibility of a life once lived. In a series of touching, personal, and harrowing cases, this season addresses unorthodox therapy sessions, and uncomfortable, messy, and beautiful personal encounters. Jenny and those around her will come to truly understand what it means to be alive as they dance with death.

CORONER stars Serinda Swan as Dr. Jenny Cooper with Roger Cross (Dark Matter, Caught) as Donovan McAvoy; Éric Bruneau (Goalie, Blue Moon) as Liam; Ehren Kassam (Degrassi, Next Class) as Ross; Nicholas Campbell (Da Vinci’s Inquest, Bad Blood) as Gordon Cooper; Tamara Podemski (Run, Never saw it Coming) as Alison Trent; Andy McQueen (Killjoys) as Malik Abed; and Kiley May (It Chapter Two) as River Baitz. 

A CBC original series, CORONER is produced by Muse Entertainment, Back Alley Films and Cineflix Studios. Morwyn Brebner is executive producer and showrunner, Adrienne Mitchell (Durham County, Bellevue) is lead director and executive producer for Back Alley Films, Jonas Prupas is executive producer for Muse Entertainment with Peter Emerson and Brett Burlock executive producers for Cineflix Studios.

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Serinda Swan on her CBC series Coroner and why Canadian actors in L.A. should come home

The last time I spoke to Serinda Swan, she was co-starring in A&E’s excellent and cancelled-too-soon Breakout Kings. Filmed in Toronto, Swan played one of a handful of criminals who worked with the U.S. marshals to collar prison escapees and have time taken off their own sentences.

Now Swan is back in Toronto, on the other side of the law in CBC’s new drama Coroner. Debuting on Monday at 9 p.m., the drama—based loosely on the books by M.R. Hall—stars Swan as Dr. Jenny Cooper, a recently widowed new coroner who investigates suspicious, unnatural or sudden deaths in Toronto. Created by Morwyn Brebner (Saving Hope) and produced by Muse Entertainment, Back Alley Films and Cineflix Studios, Coroner features Roger Cross as homicide detective Donovan McAvoy; Lovell Adams-Gray as pathologist Dr. Dwayne Allen; Tamara Podemski as Alison Trent, Jenny’s assistant; Kiley May as River Baitz, Dr. Allen’s assistant; and Ehren Kassam as Ross, Jenny’s son.

I chatted with Swan and Cross during CBC’s winter media day in November.

How did you get involved in Coroner, Serinda? Were you looking to come back to Canada?
Serinda Swan: I’ve had my eye on projects, Canadian projects, for a while because I feel there’s this new face of Canadian television that’s coming up or new perception of Canadian television that I think, as Canadian actors, we need to come back. We need to come back to Canada and we need to stop this archaic idea that in order to make it, we need to go to the U.S.

I think that dilutes the Canadian talent pool because we all leave, and then our team and our managers and agents don’t want us to come back, and I think this is a time that’s really exciting for Canadian television because we’re having these shows come out, and they’re becoming more specific. We’re not making Canadian television for American markets anymore. We’re making Canadian television for Canadian markets, and in that specificity, it becomes more universal.

Roger Cross: It’s making quality television, and it translates universally.

SS: I read a script a few years ago [for] Bellevue. And I loved it, I absolutely loved it, I thought it was incredible. And we got very, very close to actually doing it, and it didn’t end up working in the end, and so I had my eyes on [the production companies]. I was like, ‘OK, this is a pretty incredible group of humans that are orbiting around some really interesting material.’ They called me when this role came up, and said, ‘Would you be interested?’

And they sent me the bible for it, and it just was such an interesting perspective, the imagery that they used in it, the way that they described the character. The fact that she was more human than she was coroner … And so when I read it, I was like, ‘Oh this is some character work. I’m gonna be able to physically, emotionally and mentally change.’ And they were all for it. I was like, ‘I want my character to cut off her hair, I want to be able to put on weight, I want to be able to change my physicality, I want to be able to have a minute and a half panic attack on television. I want to show mental health issues, I want to show a diverse cast. I want to be able to have gay, straight, trans, black, white, First Nations on our show and not exploit it, but celebrate it. Show what Canada really is.’

And they literally went, ‘Yeah, of course.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, my people.’ This is exactly where I want to be, and I want to stop being a part of the problem, and just doing what I think cool American TV is.

A show like Dark Matter, just thinking most recently Roger, it’s just good TV regardless of what country it’s from.
RC: Yeah. And that’s the thing, you want to get rid of those labels. Let’s forget about, ‘It’s good for this,’ or, ‘You’re good because you’re a woman.’ And hopefully we evolve to that point where we can do that one day, and that will be great.

Jenny has her world ripped apart, and you see her struggle at times, but evolve and grow throughout it.
SS: To show the bad and the ugly. She makes good choices, bad choices and then some lovely choices.

I love the chemistry that Jenny and Donovan have. They have a really good repartee.
SS: I think that comes from both of them not really giving a shit about the other one. To be honest, she doesn’t care if he likes her, he doesn’t care if she likes him, and so there’s this relaxed sense of just being who you are, that is really interesting when it comes to two different characters. Because, normally, it’s two people don’t like each other and they’re fighting to make each other like each other, and that’s not it. I’m after the truth here, with or without you, I’m going after the truth. And so it’s this breaking down and figuring it out.

RC: One of the things that homicide detectives have is a consultant we talk to. We had real pathologists, real detectives, we had real SWAT members come out … We had some great people to lean on, and ask them, ‘When you are cutting a body out, would you do this? How would you handle evidence? How would you do things?’ We had these great people to lean on. And one thing this homicide detective said to me was, ‘Listen, we’re the main thing, it’s our world. They all serve to assist us to find the murderers and find these other people.’ And so, Donovan’s been used to that world where, ‘OK, we need you, coroner. We need you over here, we need these other people. But we run the show and we know what’s going on.’ He’s been used to doing things his way and had a coroner that would sign off on things, saying, ‘Yes, that’s how it’s done.’ ‘Yeah? OK good.’ [Jenny] comes in and she’s like, ‘Nah, ah, ah, ah, ah. I’m not signing off until I’m absolutely sure that that’s right.’ He’s like, ‘What’s wrong with you? Just stay in line, do your thing.’

SS: He started as Jenny, and then slowly it dulled out, based on the constant rubbing of people just trying to get the quick fix. And so eventually, it’s that knife, he comes in very sharp and by the end, you’re like, ‘I’m worn out, man.’ She’s coming in strong, and so there is that friction of, ‘Don’t mess up my life,’ on both sides.

With Morwyn Brebner as the creator, it’s no surprise Coroner is a roller coaster of emotion. It just came across like it’s a cable show. Yes, it fits on CBC, but it also very much as a cable show where you can have those moments, those long moments to really let a scene breathe and let those emotions come out.
SS: That was something that was really important to me because that’s how I act. I don’t react, I act, and in order to act, you have to hear, you have to listen, truly listen and you have to process and then you have to figure out how you want to act. And it could be a reaction, but there is that moment of processing.

Coroner airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem.

Images courtesy of CBC.Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

Additional casting confirmed as Muse, Back Alley and Cineflix start production on CBC original drama Coroner

From a media release:

With production now underway in Toronto, Ontario, Muse Entertainment, Back Alley Films and Cineflix Studios today revealed additional casting for new CBC original drama CORONER (8×60), set for a winter 2019 broadcast and streaming premiere on CBC, the CBC TV app and cbc.ca/watch. Inspired by the best-selling series of books by M. R. Hall and created by Morwyn Brebner (Saving Hope), the series centres on newly appointed coroner Jenny Cooper as she investigates suspicious deaths in Toronto.

CORONER stars Serinda Swan (Inhumans, Ballers) as Jenny Cooper, a brave, determined yet vulnerable coroner, former ER doctor, and recently widowed mother, driven by an intense desire for the truth. She loves her son more than life itself and strives to support him while also trying to take care of herself. The passing of Jenny’s beloved husband has unlocked a primal connection to death, tied to a secret in her past that is only now coming to the surface.  With storylines based on real-life cases, Jenny is a coroner for our time, an advocate for the dead even when it’s inconvenient for the living, and a defender of those who are powerless or in peril.

Joining the series are Roger Cross (The X-Files) as Donovan “Mac” McAvoy, a police detective who partners with Jenny; Éric Bruneau (Blue Moon) as Liam, Jenny’s new neighbour; and Ehren Kassam (DeGrassi: Next Class) as Ross, Jenny’s 17-year-old son. Also joining the cast are Tamara Podemski (Rabbit Fall) as Alison Trent, Jenny’s eccentric colleague; Allison Chung (UnReal) as Taylor Kim, a smart, junior homicide detective; Lovell Adams-Gray (Second Jen) as Dr. Dwayne Allen, an idealistic young pathologist; and Saad Siddiqui (Madame Secretary) as Dr. Neil Sharma, Jenny’s insightful psychiatrist.

A CBC original series, CORONER is produced by Muse Entertainment, Back Alley Films and Cineflix Studios. Morwyn Brebner is creator, executive producer and showrunner, Adrienne Mitchell (Durham County, Bellevue) is lead director and executive producer for Back Alley Films, Jonas Prupas is executive producer for Muse Entertainment with Peter Emerson and Brett Burlock executive producers for Cineflix Studios. For CBC, Sally Catto is General Manager, Programming; Helen Asimakis is Senior Director, Scripted Content; and Sarah Adams is Executive in Charge of Production. Cineflix Rights has the exclusive worldwide distribution rights to CORONER.Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail