Montreal: Blackwatch Releasing is financing the f/x- laden underworld action series Slayer: Crusaders Chronicles, which the company says will be distributed first on the Internet.

The Montreal distrib is picking up the $1-million price tag to produce and market 10 10-minute episodes of Slayer, and then plans to partner with an unnamed Toronto outfit in launching a webcasting enterprise.

Blackwatch president Bill Mariani, back from an inspirational visit to the Orlando Comic Book Festival, says revenue will come from advertising sales based on tracked e-mail addresses. "The beauty of what we are doing is we are going to find a target market and make [shows] for those people."

Slayer is about a down-and-out cop and his ragtag crime-fighting outfit as they take on the vamp underground led by the centuries-old Helene, played by Victoria Silvstedt, a Swedish model and spokesperson for Guess, and certainly, no less a distinction, Yahoo's Ms March 2000.

The show has "lots of action and lots of great-looking women" and is being shot digitally by producers Kevin Woodhouse and Jason Cavalier of Action East.

After Slayers, it'll be Slashers and two more webcast series-in-the-making, Making a Date and Chain Tape, both "in coproduction" with the u.k.

As for the old model of movies in darkened theatres, Blackwatch is pleased to report Pedro Almodovar's All About My Mother (Sony Classics) is close to the $1.2-million box-office mark in Canada.

*Roy directs ensemble romance Cafe Ole

Andrew Tarbet (Road to Avonlea), who Ficciones Films producer Pierre Laberge says "is the next Kevin Costner, believe me," and rising Spanish actress Laia Marull (Barcelona) are the stars of Richard Roy's romance comedy Cafe Ole.

Filmed over 25 days in the west-end n.d.g. area of Montreal, Cafe Ole is an ensemble story of a young man's relationships with neighbors and relatives and his love affair with an illegal immigrant.

The promising cast includes Stephanie Morgenstern, Dino Tavarone, Harry Standjofski, Macha Grenon, Sheena Larkin and Michelle-Barbara Pelletier. The screenplay is from former Montrealer Emil Sher.

Laberge has worked as a line producer on shows such as Tracker and Un voix en Or and says Ficciones was set up solely for the purpose of Cafe Ole. Will he try to produce more movies? He doesn't know.

Jocelyn Dubois is the shoot's pm, Marc Charlebois is the dop and Stravos Evangelou is the designer. J.F. Bergeron is editing at Splice and Covitec is handling 35mm lab duties. Andrea Kenyon and Associates Casting in Montreal and Stephanie Gorin are the casting agencies.

The producer says many of the stcvq techies on the shoot are working for "near minimum wages."

France Film/Equinox Entertainment has Canadian and international rights. Cafe Ole is budgeted at $1.36 million and has been sold to TMN-The Movie Network and Super Ecran, with development support coming from The Harold Greenberg Fund.