Wellspring sets up U.S. 'Doctor' visit

Pic to screen in Gotham March 26

By BRENDAN KELLY

MONTREAL -- New York-based specialty distrib Wellspring has acquired all U.S. rights to French-language Quebec comedy "Seducing Doctor Lewis," which the company plans to launch in the U.S. in late June.

Pic will screen in Gotham March 26 as part of the New Directors/New Films lineup jointly programmed by the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Helmer Jean-Francois Pouliot's debut feature was the top-grossing homegrown pic of the year in Canada, ringing up more than C$8 million ($6 million). It won the world cinema aud award at the Sundance Film Festival.

Deal was announced by Marie Therese Guirgis, head of acquisitions at Wellspring, which also takes video/DVD rights to the pic.

Guirgis and Matt Littin of Cinetic Media negotiated the deal. Roger Frappier and Luc Vandal of Montreal-based Max Films produced "Seducing Doctor Lewis."

"It's the rare kind of foreign film that has real potential to reach a larger audience because it is both intelligent and incredibly appealing," Guirgis said. Quebec film has kept a low-profile in the U.S. until now, but French Canadian cinema was boosted south of the Canuck border this year thanks to writer-director Denys Arcand's "The Barbarian Invasions," which won the Oscar for foreign-language picture.

"Seducing Doctor Lewis" stars Raymond Bouchard, Benoit Briere and David Boutin in a comedy about a fishing village in Quebec where the citizens will do almost anything to convince a Montreal doctor to move to the isolated island community.

(David Rooney in New York contributed to this report.)