Wildfires Smoke Out Okanagan Summer Movie Making

The wildfires had a big impact on TV and film productions in the Okanagan this summer.

Film commissioner Jon Summerland says no one wanted to film in the smoke.

“We had one film, the working title was “I’m Not A Bad Person,” and luckily it was about forest fires, among other things. And it was good. They were happy with it. But everything else pretty much bailed.”

Summerland says that included episodes of X-Files and Supergirl which chose to go somewhere else.

Despite that setback, he says the 2016-17 film season will have an economic impact of over 23 million dollars.

“This year will match last year. It had a great start because we had some pretty big stuff. We had Casey Affleck’s show right away. He was filming in town while he was winning the Oscar for best actor (for ‘Manchester By The Sea’). And now we’re ending it as a great year. We have four features.”

Summerland says one of those is a film by Rick Dugdale of Enderby Entertainment filming in the Lavington-Lumby area this fall.