While producer Don Carmody may be best known for his credits on Hollywood productions, he recently got behind the Canada/U.K. copro feature Some Things That Stay.

Gail Harvey directed the period coming-of-age drama about teenaged Tamara (played by Katie Boland, Harvey’s daughter), who has a hard time settling in a conservative rural community. Catherine Gourdier, who is married to Carmody, adapted the script from the novel by Sarah Willis and produced with her husband and Chris Chrisafis.

‘That’s a film that wouldn’t have been made without Don,’ Harvey is quick to point out. She adds that she has long been impressed by Carmody’s work ethic.

‘He’s tough and he knows what he’s doing,’ she says. ‘But Don is very loyal to people he trusts, which is why you see the same people working on successive Carmody productions. As a result, people are very loyal to him.’

Harvey can be counted in that camp, as her own working relationship with Carmody dates back to her gig as a stills photographer on the 1987 gambling drama The Big Town with Matt Dillon, which Carmody coproduced.

‘I really liked him,’ Harvey recalls. ‘Don has a real understanding of photography. He actually collects photos and has a lot of respect for photographers.’

Harvey subsequently shot stills for a number of Carmody productions, including Johnny Mnemonic in 1994.

‘I got to know him personally as well, because he lived near me in Toronto’s Beaches neighborhood for a while,’ she adds. ‘We became friends.’

Harvey trained at the Canadian Film Centre in 1989, and her relationship with Carmody would certainly come in handy professionally. But she says she is just one of many who have benefited from Carmody’s producing talents.

‘Much of what is happening in Toronto’s film industry today probably wouldn’t be happening without Don Carmody,’ she says. ‘Not only does he shoot in Toronto whenever he can, as he did with Chicago, but when SARS crippled our production sector, Don was [one of a few] who hung in and kept shooting here.’

Some Things That Stay played on local screens earlier this year and recently closed the 2005 Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto.