Hollywood coming to West Kootenay region in fall

People of the West Kootenay get ready, The Tall Man cometh.

The Nelson area has been the stage for several movies over the years — including Roxanne, Snow Falling on Cedars, Out Cold and A Simple Curve — and now another one is set to be filmed in the region this fall.

The Tall Man, a thriller film directed and produced by the French filmmaking duo, Pascal Laugier and Clement Miserez is planned for filming this fall on location at various locations throughout the region.

Set in the run-down mountain town of Cold Rock, The Tall Man stars the sultry Jessica Biel (Texas Chainaw Massacre, Blade, Trinity), girlfriend of mega-star, Justin Timberlake, as a doctor who moves from the city to Cold Rock to set up a clinic and help out the community.

John Wittmayer, a Slocan Valley resident who has worked in the Canadian film industry for decades, helped Laugier and Miserez decide to film their movie here in the West Kootenay.

“They were looking for a small community,” Wittmayer said. “They wanted something that had one or two-storey buildings with wide, vacant-looking streets – something that's obviously a twilight industry town.”

Wittmayer said Joanna Maratta, the Kootenay Columbia representative of the BC Film Commission was instrumental in bringing him on board and getting this film to come to the region.

“She tried hard to bring this film to Nelson,” Wittmayer noted. “She and the staff helped a lot in selling the Kootenays for this film.”

The Tall Man is being produced in Canada by Mind's Eye Entertainment (Faces in the Crowd with Milla Jovanvich) and distributed by Alliance Films, so Wittmayer said people can expect to see it on the big screen in theatres.

With a budget of $11 million and the artistic filmmaking Pascal Laugier is known for, Wittmayer expects to see something great.

“He's got some pretty novel ways of shooting and some good ideas,” he said. “I think it will be a good film. It won't be a Hollywood slick production. But I think you'll see some artistic stuff.”

And area residents can expect to see some of that $11 million injected into the local economy.

“He (Laugier) really wants to work with the locations,” Wittmayer said. “He's very community-minded, in terms of going into these communities and hiring locally.

“I've been asked to hire local carpenters, painters and even extras. He's really wanting to get as much realism from the community as he can. He really wants to be inclusive.”