Screen Siren Pictures is heading into post on Luna: The Way Home, the latest in CTV’s Heroes, Champions and Villains MOW series. The film – based on the true story of Luna, a recently deceased killer whale that lived in the harbor of a B.C. village for five years – shot around Vancouver Island last month.

The story is a fictionalized account of Luna’s life in the harbor and the conflicting rationalizations between the local aboriginal community and government about whether to relocate him.

Siren exec producer Trish Dolman (Flower & Garnet) says although the shoot is working with a mid-level MOW budget, ‘Luna’ will appear in the film.

‘We have two animatronic Lunas,’ says Dolman. ‘The first is basically a hard-shell full-sized whale that moves through the water that we [used] for a bunch of shots, including our paddling scenes and for interaction with people. We also have a full animatronic head… and we will be doing some CG work to augment it for certain shots.’

Dolman says stock footage of the real Luna and other orcas will be used as well, but adds there is no truth to reports that the producers had planned to release a real whale into the Gold River harbor, where Luna lived and some of the film was shot.

Anne Marie La Traverse (Playing House) and Lori Lozinski (The Score) are producing. Don McBrearty (Terry) directed the script by Elizabeth Stewart (Tagged: The Jonathan Wamback Story) and Barbara Samuels (Chasing Freedom). Graham Greene, Jason Priestley and Adam Beach (Windtalkers) star.

Peace Arch Entertainment will distribute the film internationally, but no foreign sales have been made as yet. Luna was scheduled to wrap Aug. 30.