Filming Under Way on New French-Canadian Co-Production

TORONTO, February 4: The
National Film Board of Canada (NFB), France’s 13 Production and Montreal-based
Galafilm announced that filming has begun in France for Paris 1919, an adaptation of the best-selling historical book
by Margaret MacMillan.

The two-hour documentary,
which will be completed later this year, will use rare archival footage and
reenactments to illustrate the six months of compromise and change that took
place in Paris in 1919, exploring the impact of the Treaty of Versailles. Canadian
filmmaker Paul Cowan (Westray, The Peacekeepers) is the writer, director and cinematographer for Paris
1919, which is produced by NFB in
co-production with 13 Production, in association with Galafilm.

“Ninety years after the
Treaty of Versailles was signed, the world is still grappling with the
ramifications of the deals made by a handful of diplomats and politicians,”
said Cowan. “When the 32 nations met in Paris in 1919 and redrew the map of the
world, new countries were formed, alliances were made. Instead of achieving
their goal of long-lasting peace, another world war erupted and still today the
fallout from Paris ripples through the Balkans, the Middle East [and] the Far
East.

“It is not a happy story,”
he continued, “it is however as relevant today as it was to the world in 1919.
It is at once a global story and a very intense personal story of ambition,
greed and idealism gone awry. It will be centered—as any tragedy of this
magnitude must be—on the bigger-than-life men whose often capricious
decisions changed the fate of millions.”

Presale partners around
the world include ARTE in France, TVOntario, NHK Japan, SBS Australia and
broadcasters in Belgium, Finland and Switzerland.

—By Kristin
Brzoznowski