Canadian Film Day

Wednesday was Canadian Film Day, and what better way to celebrate than to pre-order Shot In Vancouver, a book about all the great, overlooked and weird films and series made in B.C.?

It covers the well-known US and international stuff—Shogun and Supernatural and X-Files, Rumble in the Bronx and Deadpool. And of course Da Vinci’s Inquest and Intelligence, the two best shows made in Canada.

But some of the most fun stuff to research and write about were the Canadian films. The “tax shelter” era of the late 70s and 80s is fascinating. Within ten years B.C. became the hub of good and actually fun to watch Canadian films like The Grey Fox, Skip Tracer, My American Cousin and The Changeling, and also led to TWO big budget films about evil mutant animals—Watchers starring Michael Ironside and Prophecy starring Talia Shire.

When the Canadian Film Awards (the Genies) launch in 1980, B.C. films won four of the first seven Best Picture awards. And then don’t win for a decade, until The Sweet Hereafter (arguably the most stereotypically “Canadian” indie ever made, though exteriors were shot in Merritt).

Two of the joys of writing the book were discovering all the stuff you’d never think was shot in Hollywood North (Five Easy Pieces, Best in Show, Battlestar Galactica, the L Word) and also finding independent films and series that are really good and interesting—Golden Delicious, Down River, Kissed, Double Happiness, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open. There are a lot of really talented people behind and in front of the camera in Vancouver’s film industry.

Pre-order from Bookshop or IndiePubs or from Arsenal Pulp Press.