TORONTO — Veteran actor Donald Sutherland shares the screen with his son Rossif, "Passchendaele"'s Paul Gross plays a U.S. gunslinger and Ryan Phillippe and Taylor Kitsch are photojournalists caught up in a bloody apartheid struggle in Canadian films now moving into production and post-production with the help of government funds.

Telefilm Canada is announcing a little more than $22 million in financial support to a dozen English-language projects that include some of the country's biggest stars and cover a broad range of genres.

Telefilm's national feature film executive says Canadian projects are getting more elaborate and ambitious in their scope, with larger budgets that bank on private investors for added support.

"This might be pretty obvious to people - but bigger budget movies tend to make more money," says Stephanie Azam, whose agency is dedicated to developing Canada's film industry and provides regular financial support to the sector.

"But they have to be bigger-budget movies with that market interest component.... Because we don't just want to make movies, we want to make movies that Canadians see and that make money at the box office."

Projects financed by the Canada Feature Film Fund include Sutherland's return to Canadian film in "The Con Artist," in which he plays a criminal named Kranski who forces the newly paroled Vince, played by Rossif, back into a life of crime. U.S. actress Rebecca Romijn portrays an art dealer who discovers Vince's passion for sculpting. Currently shooting in Toronto and Hamilton, the film gets $2,967,000 to put towards an overall budget of nearly $6 million, says Azam.

"And when's the last time Donald Sutherland made a Canadian movie with us?" she asks. "It's been quite some time, so we're really happy to repatriate him."

Telefilm ponies up its largest contribution - the $4 million maximum - for Gross's comic western, "Gunless." Gross plays a hardened American gunslinger that is "repeatedly thwarted in his attempts to mount a showdown in a friendly Alberta town where no one seems to understand or appreciate the brutal code of the American Wild West," Telefilm says in a release.

Last year, Gross scored well with his $20-million war film, "Passchendaele," which netted roughly $4.4.million in ticket sales and the 2009 Golden Reel Award for being Canada's top box office performer. Gross wrote, co-produced, directed and starred in that film, but is merely set to star in "Gunless," set to shoot in B.C.'s Okanagan Valley next month. Azam says it boasts an overall budget of about $8 million.

Meanwhile, U.S. actor Phillippe and Kelowna, B.C.'s Kitsch, of "Friday Night Lights" fame, appear in "The Bang Bang Club," based on the book of the same name about four photojournalists during the final days of apartheid in South Africa. It receives $1,963,572 and is filming in Johannesburg.

Hopes are high for the Montreal-based "Funkytown," set during the dying days of disco and focusing on eight characters and the hottest club in town. Azam says it evokes elements of the 2005 francophone hit "C.R.A.Z.Y." and the racy 1997 Mark Wahlberg film, "Boogie Nights." The period piece, featuring dialogue in both English and French, receives $3,750,000.

Azam said this year's batch of Canadian filmmakers are notable for setting their sights on the global box office.

"People are thinking about the world and making films that reach international audiences," she says. "There's a huge focus on marketing and distribution. Producers are more savvy than they've ever been and they're thinking about that at an early development stage: 'Who is my audience? Who is going to come and see this film? How are we going to reach that audience?' We are seeing a trend in producers coming in with really solid packages that include succinct marketing plans."

Telefilm was to also announce nearly $500,000 for three English-language films under the low-budget independent feature film assistance program.

Most of the films are expected to be ready for release next year.

Other payments from the Canada Feature Film Fund include:

-$1,900,000 for director Uwe Boll's "The Storm," about a small rural family that survives biblical Armageddon but is left alone in the world.

-$1,500,000 for the animated story "Sarila," directed by Nancy Savard, about three mythical young Inuit who must battle dark forces in order to save their tribe from famine.

-$1,491,000 for "Altitude," directed by Kaare Andrews, about a rookie pilot and her four teenage friends that are trapped in a deadly showdown when their plane crashes.

-$1,349,736 for "Suck," written and directed by Rob Stefaniuk and billed as "a highly stylized rock 'n' roll vampire comedy" with cameos by international stars including Iggy Pop, Moby and Alice Cooper.

-$1,200,000 for "Year of the Carnivore," written and directed by CBC Radio's Sook-Yin Lee, about a girl with a crush on a boy "who thinks she's bad in bed."