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SAULT STE. MARIE, Ont.— Heather Graham, costumed in a skin-tight floral dress and cherry-coloured stilettos, is whipping up chocolate soufflés under the watchful eye of fellow actor Joe Mantegna. What would the workers at D.D.I. Seamless Cylinder make of their former workplace?
As L.A. film publicist Steven Zeller put it as he opened the door to what was once a fire extinguisher parts manufacturer on the outskirts of Sault Ste. Marie: “Welcome to Hollywood north-north.”
The empty factory became a sound stage in May for darkly comic thriller Compulsion and temporary home to a pair of elaborate New York City apartment sets inhabited by obsessive-compulsives played by Boogie Nights star Graham (who fancies herself a TV chef) and The Matrix’s Carrie-Anne Moss, whose character is an emaciated, bitter former child star. The film is a remake of South Korean director Cheol-su Park’s 301, 302.
On one apartment kitchen set, crew members move a camera along track laid down to the specifications of 82-year-old Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) while Graham and Mantegna rehearse their lines.
Soo-born director Egidio Coccimiglio, who left the city 675 kilometres northwest of Toronto to study film at Ryerson University in the 1980s and now lives in L.A., describes it as “an Odyssian journey” for him to be back in his hometown three decades later to shoot Compulsion, to say nothing of making it with such a legendary cinematographer.
“When I was in Grade 9, I asked to get some direction on where I could study film. People didn’t know what filmmaking was. I was met with a lot of blank stares,” Coccimiglio explained during a break from lensing his new movie.
“To go away and then find myself back in this particular production was surreal to say the least.”
Northern Ontario residents are getting used to seeing movie stars around town and feeling the benefits of film production staff spending their pay in restaurants and hotels, thanks to a generous layering of tax credits for hiring local crews and businesses. It’s part of a complex network of repayable government loans and financial incentives to encourage production both in Ontario and also the north.
Since 2004, the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp., an agency of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, has invested more than $25 million from Parry Sound north to attract film production there. Diversification is the reason behind the push, aimed at helping Northern Ontario ease its reliance on natural resource-based sectors while making up for revenues lost with industrial downsizing and closures.
Producer Bill Marks (Casino Jack) has spent so much time shooting in Sault Ste. Marie lately, he bought a house there two months ago. Not only does he have Compulsion opening next year, he also produced The Truth, starring Andy Garcia, Eva Longoria and Forest Whitaker; The Story of Luke, with Seth Green and Cary Elwes; and Collaborator, starring David Morse, Martin Donovan and Olivia Williams. All were shot in the Soo.
Marks explained the march north followed in the wake of 9/11 and the 2003 SARS crisis, which sent already-booked Toronto productions to cities like Winnipeg or Halifax at the last minute. Filmmakers realized they could work well outside Toronto when it came to smaller-budget movies and those that didn’t need urban settings for locations.
Since 2009, the area north of the GTA has been especially busy, with Oliver Sherman and the Kids in the Hall’s Death Comes to Town shooting in North Bay — plus The Colony starring Laurence Fishburne, the first movie made in the city’s now-shuttered NORAD bunker. Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster, The Story of Luke and Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang — a remake of the 1996 film that was among Angelina Jolie’s early roles — were shot in Sault Ste. Marie, while A Little Bit Zombie, The Truth and The Lesser Blessed were filmed in Sudbury, to name a few.
But why would Hollywood head outside the GTA?
“It’s like my favourite line from The Right Stuff,” Marks said with a grin as he sat at a lunch table tucked off to one side of the set. “‘You know what makes this bird fly? It’s not rocket fuel, it’s not your technology. It’s funding, my friend.’”
For the rest of this article, please go to the Toronto Star website: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/1226587–hollywood-far-north-how-sudbury-and-sault-ste-marie-are-becoming-moviemaking-centres