The Secret Language of Girls, a one-hour "documentary with a sense of humor" from Copie Zero Television and Media in Montreal, is premised on the idea that "Women have a way of communicating with each other that doesn't involve men, that men don't understand," says producer Matt Zimbel. "The secret language of girls begins in childhood. It takes hold in the schoolyard."

Josey Vogels, writer of the project, has quite a complicated pedigree. She is the author of a book called The Secret Language of Girls, to be published in 2002, as well as the writer of a syndicated column called "My Messy Bedroom," which has spun off books and a comedy/doc series of the same name (26 x 30), made with Zimbel and set to debut on WTN in August.

In development for six years, the idea for The Secret Language of Girls, budgeted in the $600,000 range, came out of Vogels' work on her columns and the thoughts that were sparked "about how men and women communicate," says Zimbel. "Don't think there's going to be a lot of time spent with academics - there's going to be a lot of anecdotes, lots of observations. For six years Josey has been getting material from men and women, she has her ear to the ground as far a contemporary relationships are concerned.

"The difficulty in describing the secret language of girls is that we all understand it and we all take it for granted," Vogels says. "Women's communication has always been belittled as gossip. The way women connect and the things we connect about are not taken seriously [for example, relationships], and for me that's what we thrive on. I want to explain what women connect on and how we connect.

"Women are conscious of what's going on around them in a way that men aren't. Women are programmed to look out at the world and think about other people, whereas men are programmed to look in and think about themselves. Women are programmed to be concerned about other people.

"Women want to be loved. A lot of women come from places where they don't get attention and their status is less in the world, and they live with that all their lives. Women are like 'Do you want me here?' I think we still struggle with it." *

-www.mymessybedroom.com