Image Credit: Kent Simmonds / CFJC Today

By Dylana Kneeshaw

INTERIOR FILM MAKING

Steady stream of film and television show productions working within Thompson-Nicola region and beyond

Mar 20, 2024 | 6:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — The Kamloops area, and surrounding regions within B.C.’s interior are known as recreation destinations, but they’ve also become high demand locations for film and television productions.

Judging by early figures, the Thompson-Nicola Film Commission (TNFC) is expecting to have another strong year. Film industry strikes in 2023 affected the amount of productions coming through, but 2024 is faring better.

“2023 we brought in, we’re estimating, somewhere around $2.5 million (of economic activity), and we’ve pretty much met that within the first couple of months of 2024,” says Thompson-Nicola Film Commissioner Terri Hadwin, “So definitely a very different year.”

According to Hadwin, recent banner years were led by an steady stream of mid-sized movies with budgets around $1.5 – $3 million working in the area. Lately, larger productions are utilizing the landscape, and tax credit incentives which make filming movies here more affordable for crews.

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“We are bringing in more of the bigger productions. For example, Tracker, or Godzilla, or the Monach: Legacy of Monsters. Those are kind of bigger budget productions,” adds Hadwin.

There’s also plenty of stories about B.C.’s interior to be told through film. A new documentary, ‘Backburn – Behind the Lines’, will showcase the Shuswap community response to the Bush Creek East wildfire of 2023.

Filmmaker Cjay Boisclair of Askem Productions and YKA Film Society is one of the leaders of this project, and says they have plenty of footage to go through, but so far it’s shaping up to be an extremely moving piece.

“So we still have some interviews with people that were evacuated, people that lost their homes, people that kept their homes,” she notes, “We still have interviews with experts like fire ecology and climate change, and all of those pieces that will really put it together.”

There will be a community viewing of Backburn this summer for Shuswap residents before a finalized, full release of the documentary later on.

After going out to speak with residents and gather interviews, Boisclair says the stories shared with them by people who experienced the fire’s devastation first-hand really drives the film.

“So that piece of community resilience and spirit is what the whole thread of this film is,” states Boisclair, “No matter what else we bring out in it.”

It’s one of many productions to come out of the region in recent years – another sign of the potential for film making in the Interior to keep growing.

“We did eight full length films here that we got to produce which was a highlight to be able to do that in our own community. But we’ve worked in crew in so many different productions,” adds Boisclair, when asked about the extent of film and television production work she’s seen take place in recent years.

The Thompson Nicola Film Commission says it’ll keep utilizing grant opportunities, and recent boosts in marketing funding to build the profile of the area. But thankfully, a lot of that promotional work of the landscape is done naturally. Pick a direction, drive 20 minutes, and ‘voila’.

“We’ve got the grasslands, the deserts, the forests, all of that right nearby so I think that it does lend it self really, really well to film production,” reiterates Hadwin.