Montreal: Lots of high-level European coproduction action at Transfilm this summer, with two projects in front of the cameras, the Gerard Pires (Taxi) action film Heist and Yves Simoneau's historical blockbuster miniseries Napoleon, and a third project, Carole Giacobbi's comedy thriller Polyesterday, slated to shoot here this fall.

Heist, a Mark Ezra story about extreme sport types on the criminal fringe, stars Stephen Dorff, Natasha Henstridge, Bruce Payne and Steven Berkoff. It's been filming on location in Montreal over the past 12 weeks, and is a triparite coproduction between Claude Leger of Transfilm, Jason Piette, Michael Cowan and Jonathan Vanger of the U.K.'s Spice Factory, and Eric and Nicolas Altmayer of France's Mandarin.

Remstar Distribution holds Canadian rights to the $19-million film. Miramax Films has the U.S. and TF1 International has international.

Director Simoneau (Nuremberg, Free Money) and DOP Guy Dufaux are in Europe (France, Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria) for 22 weeks filming the eight-hour, $57-million historical drama Napoleon. Leger's Euro coproducers, Jean-Pierre Guerin and Veronique Marchat of GMT Productions and the U.K.'s Spice Factory, are especially pleased with Simoneau's participation.

The director has recruited some of his home-side regulars for the occasion, picture editor Yves Langlois and music composer Richard Gregoire.

The show is being alternately shot in French and English and has an all-star cast, led by Christian Clavier in the title role, John Malkovich, Gerard Depardieu, Isabella Rossellini, Guillaume Depardieu and Anouk Aimee as well as Canadian actors Jessica Pare, David LaHaye, Yves Jacques, Serge Dupire, Rock Lafortune, Richard Groulx and Albert Millaire.

Mark Sorella, Transfilm director of business and legal affairs, reports Napoleon has been licensed by A&E Networks in the U.S., Kirchmedia in Germany, France 2 in France and RAI in Italy.

Polyesterday is an $11-million Canada/Euro coproduction between Transfilm and Richard Sadler of Montreal's Film Stock International and producers Michelle Giacobbi of France and Christopher Milburn of the U.K. It's described as a thriller with funny, sexy and violent relief.

Good results for Lost Junction

Neve Campbell (Scream, Panic) and Billy Burke (Along Came A Spider, Wonderland) star in the new Peter Masterton (Convicts, Red Blood, The Trip to Bountiful) feature film drama Lost Junction, which wrapped principal photography here after a 25-day shoot. The film is produced by Michael Mailer and Daniel Bigel of New York's Bigel/Mailer Films. Tom Luse is the supervising producer.

In Lost Junction, Campbell's character is a suspect in her husband's murder. She complicates matters by running off to New Orleans, taking along hubbie's money and a man with his own past, played by Burke.

From his Tribeca office, Mailer, son of famous author Norman Mailer, says the tight preproduction schedule was tough, but then everything fell nicely into place. "Essentially everyone [in the STCVQ crew] was great, and Peter was quite impressed with the local talent pool [ACTRA]."