Film company gets Sask. grant funding for movie set in B.C.

Minds Eye Entertainment, a Regina-based film production company is receiving a chunk of Saskatchewan grant money for a movie itsshooting in B.C.

The company is filming The Recall, an upcoming alien thriller featuring Wesley Snipes in the Okanagan Valley, B.C.

CEO Kevin Dewalt saidthey chose the location because the story is set in a forest with mountains.

Creative Saskatchewan is pitching in $350,000 and a B.C. government tax credit will give Minds Eye another $550,000 for the production.

Dewalt saidthe project is eligible for Saskatchewan grant money because half of the 60-person crew is Saskatchewan taxpayers, and the film's post-production will be completed in Regina.

"The way the Saskatchewan production grant works is it's based on the "Saskatchewan spend" so as long as you take Saskatchewan cast or crew or services to the location that you're shooting, you're eligible under the Creative Saskatchewan guidelines."

Dewalt saidthe Saskatchewan component of the movie is budgeted to cost $1.3 million. Creative Sask. funding will pay for 30 per cent of that.

Kyle Mrazek, the senior steward for theInternational Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees(IATSE) local295, the union representing film technicians in the Regina area, saidit wasn't surprising to hear that Minds Eye is using B.C. to co-produce The Recall.

He saidit's good that Saskatchewan people will find work, but that it misses the point.

"Yes, they're getting 15 or 20 people to go work there," he said. "However it's all the hotels, all the fuel, all of the construction equipment, all of the gear, you're not funding that in Saskatchewan. That's half of why films work so well for a province."

The Saskatchewan Motion Picture Industry Association (SMPIA) saidit's very common for production companies to take their projects elsewhere.

"You film where you need to film. If there's a certain reasonif you need certain visuals, if you need mountains," said Max Berdowski, SMPIA's executive director. "So while you may spend on gas there and not here,the expenses you're claiming as appropriate or eligible as a grant from the province of Saskatchewan will only go to Saskatchewan labour."

The Recall is the first of six films over the next two years Minds Eye announced earlier this year in Cannes, France.
Looking ahead, Dewalt said his company has only solidified the film location for this first flick. As for the second or third films, they could be filmed in Saskatchewan, but nothing's set in stone.