Casey Affleck
It has been confirmed that Hollywood star Casey Affleck, who was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award only a few days ago, will be filming his next movie in the Osoyoos area starting within days.
Jon Summerland, commissioners with the Okanagan Film Commission, confirmed Affleck has written and will co-star and direct the film called Light of My Life.
Affleck, the younger brother of Hollywood superstar Ben Affleck, was nominated last week for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance in the acclaimed film Manchester By the Sea. Casey Affleck has already captured the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Actor as well as a Golden Globe for Best Actor, as well as a nomination in the same category in the Screen Actors Guild, for his performance in Manchester by the Sea.
Summerland confirmed Affleck and a large crew would be staying at accommodations in Osoyoos during filming that is expected to begin around Feb. 8, but noted almost the entire filming in this area “will be in a small town in the area.”
He would not divulge which town that is as part of a confidentiality agreement he agreed to with Affleck’s production company.
Affleck wrote the screenplay for Light of My Life, which tells the story of a father and his daughter who are hunted down in a post-pandemic world.
The remainder of filming for Light of My Life will take place in the Vancouver area in early March after shooting wraps up in this area, said Summerland.
This movie is the second large-scale production to film in the Osoyoos area over the past several weeks as Hollywood superstar Nicolas Cage and a large crew were in town for almost three weeks for the science fiction thriller called The Humanity Bureau.
Summerland said Light of My Life will be a much larger production than The Humanity Bureau.
“It will be at least twice as big … maybe three times,” he said. “It’s still a relatively small film by Hollywood standards, but it’s much bigger and larger in scope than The Humanity Bureau.”
While there have been plenty of movies and television programs filmed and produced in the Okanagan Valley over the past decade or so, the industry is about to take off with the announcement that Eagle Creek Studios out of Vancouver have committed to building a modern, state-of-the-art sound studio in Kelowna, said Summerland.
“This is easily the biggest news for our industry in the nine years I’ve been on this job,” he said. “For Osoyoos, this means those involved in major productions will be that much closer to you and that won’t have to come all the way from the Lower Mainland or coast for every production.”
Once the sound stage is finished construction late this fall, with a projected completion date of November, Summerland is extremely confident many more movies and television shows are going to be produced across the Okanagan Valley, including the Osoyoos area.
“Any movie or TV show looking for a desert setting or arid setting, is only going to be a couple of hours away from that studio,” he said. “Building this sound stage is huge news for our industry in this past of the world.”
The Eagle Creek studio in Vancouver is currently shooting the television show The Man in High Castle, which fictionalizes what North America would have looked like and become had the Germans and Japanese prevailed during the Second World War, he said.
“It’s a big-budget, high-gloss production and a show I think is going to be a huge hit,” he said.
Summerland also confirmed that another Hollywood film, this time an unnamed Western, would be coming to the Osoyoos area this spring.
Filming will take place near Cawston as well as Summerland, he said.
While he doesn’t have final details, Summerland said Affleck’s Light of My Life could be the biggest budget film ever shot in this region.
“A movie called Gunless, shot up in the Boundary region, had a budget of $11 million and it wasn’t a bad film,” he said. “I don’t know the budget for Affleck’s film, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the budget is much bigger than that.”
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
