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Hot on the heels of a $10-million movie shoot for the southern Okanagan, two film projects totalling more than $34 million are coming to the Valley, and a production company will now call Kelowna home. Antares Global, a production company based in the United Kingdom, will move into offices in Kelowna and will shoot a TV series called Relationships and a mini-series called Tripwire in the Okanagan.
Okanagan Film commissioner Jon Summerland called the announcement “huge news” for the Valley.
“This is great. (Antares) are basing here, their offices are here, their gear, their crew. They‘ve hired their crew and they‘re working from the Okanagan. It‘s going to build up our base and create us as a place to be to film, no longer just a location.”
Relationships, a British-style soap, will shoot 11 episodes in each of three
seasons with a budget of more than $21 million. Tripwire, a mini-series with an $11-million budget, begins shooting next week in Kelowna and around the Valley.
Both shows have been sold to BBC4 in the U.K. and will be shown in 28 countries. Summerland said they‘re for sale here after budget cuts forced CBC to back out.
“This is more than a baby step for the industry. This is like a high school kid running,” he said.
Antares picked the Okanagan instead of Vancouver.
“They didn‘t like the rain … which was funny coming from a group from England,” Summerland said. “But they loved what they saw here. They loved what we have here, they loved the locations and they loved the friendliness they found here. Everyone they met just opened their arms and said ’Please, come in.‘”
Summerland said job opportunities for local crew will become more plentiful, and because the budgets for both projects are modest, the production company will be more likely to use local and student talent.
Summerland said the a Westside studio, The Cannery, is too small for the productions, so the film commission is helping Antares Global find a different location, and mentioned the possibility of Winfield.
Robert Fine, executive director of the Economic Development Commission of the Central Okanagan, said the only thing holding the film industry back in the Okanagan is a lack of funding for the film commission.
“The funding is not equal between the three regional districts,” he said, noting the Central Okanagan Regional District funds about 65 per cent of the costs for running the commission while the north and south fund 20 and 15 per cent, respectively.
Fine also said the film commission has been key in securing these projects and helping Antares set up shop in the Valley.
The movie Gunless, the latest film from Passchendale director Paul Gross and with a budget of $10 million, is currently filming near Osoyoos.
