Laura Vandervoort narrates the short film THE HUNDRED YEAR OLD WHALE, a documentary about Granny, a killer whale who was born in an era when her family members were being harpooned. She survived in the waters of the Salish Sea for more than a century, and during her lifetime, the world of whales changed completely. The fifteen minute film was written and directed by Mark Lieren-Young, and a trailer is available on Vimeo.. THE HUNDRED YEAR OLD WHALE can be pre-ordered, and will be available on demand on 21 July , from Vimeo.

Vandervoort will be Sarah in RABID, the Soska Sisters’ remake of the 1977 David Cronenberg film. Sarah is a seamstress for a well-known fashion designer, and wants nothing more than to be noticed for her own designs. After an upsetting experience at a party, she is severely scarred in a traffic accident. Sarah undergoes a radical and untested stem-cell treatment which seems to succeed, but sets off a spiraling contagion of which she is unaware, as her lovers become violent spreaders of death and disease. (In the original film, the main character was named Rose, and was played by Marilyn Chambers.) Twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska are best known for their 2012 horror classic AMERICAN MARY. Production on RABID began in June.

Tommie-Amber Pirie (Paige Winterbourne) will be Margo Elson, a tech company researcher who gets tangled up in a murder case after the death of a colleague, and Greg Bryk (Jeremy Danvers) is Detective Thomas Elliot, in the science fiction thriller THE EYE OF U.R.M. Written and directed by Benjamin Ross Hayden, THE EYE OF U.R.M. is currently filming in Calgary, Alberta, and will be released in Canada on 1 May 2019 .

Pirie also stars as Vanessa, a bisexual tattoo artist, in CLUSTERFUCK, a web series about a group of urban millennials in their mid-20s who drink too much, hurt themselves (and each other), make mistakes, and live to learn from it. Glenda MacInnis (who appeared in the BITTEN episode “Vengeance“) is also in the cast. The full series will soon be on YouTube. For now, only a trailer is available.

Sofia Banzhaf (Katia Antonov) will star as Belle, a 28 year old lesbian who returns home to Nova Scotia to care for her newly widowed mother, in a film adaptation of Lee-Anne Poole‘s 2010 play SPLINTERS. (As the story begins, Belle has secretly been in a heterosexual relationship for over a year. She wants her boyfriend to accompany her to the funeral, but does not want to reveal her bisexuality to her mother.) Kate Watson, writing for The Coast, said: “While Splinters has been described as a play about sexual identity, it can also be thought of as a play about how unrealistic expectations destroy relationships.” The film will be released in Canada later this year.

WE ARE ALL MONSTERS HERE, a short story by Kelly Armstrong, is being made into a film. The story appears in the anthology “Seize the Night: New Tales of Vampiric Horror“, and follows a “collegiate woman” who survives an outbreak of a virus that turns people into vampires, but “only reveals itself at night”. She befriends a young girl who is infected, and the two women set out on an “unique road trip of survival”. The film will be written and directed by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado.

The TV rights to Armstrong’s first three Rocton mysteries have been purchased by Temple Street Productions. The novels will be adapted by Julie Puckrin. In the first book, “City of the Lost”, homicide detective Casey Duncan heads for a secret town in the Yukon wilderness to help her friend Diana hide from her abusive ex. Armstrong tweeted on 8 June: “So, @TempleStreet acquired the rights to my Rockton series, with the intention of adapting it for TV. That’s not a guarantee it’ll make it to the screen, but it’s a nice, solid first step. I’m an Orphan Black fan, so I was thrilled when Temple Street expressed interest in Rockton. They’ve added a showrunner @juliepuckrin (hi, Julie!) which is awesome. Some have expressed concern here & privately re: maintaining the diversity of the books. It’s not at that stage (and there’s no guarantee it’ll get there–yeah, I’ll keep saying that) but I do hear you. Believe me, after the Bitten/Jeremy situation, I hear you.”

All three seasons of BITTEN can be streamed on NETFLIX (US).







