Northern Ontario is more than a destination. It’s a character in your story whose next-to-none aesthetic is as nostalgic as it is malleable; gritty & industrial in Orah, an international production with juxtaposed scenes set in Nigeria; bright & charming in The Lake, Amazon Prime Video’s summer-streaming hit; biting & desolate in My Animal, Paramount’s supernatural thriller that sunk its teeth at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
Take for example Rebecca Snow’s The Boy in the Woods, a harrowing adaptation of Maxwell Smart’s story of survival as a young boy during WWII, that seamlessly transformed the lively nature of Northern Ontario’s forestry into war-torn wilderness. Desperate, unnerving, enduring, and heroic: the ever-evolving backdrops to this poignant tale exhibit the creative potential that lay in the landscape.
Devin Mahesh, Director of Industry Development and Production Services with Cultural Industries Ontario North (CION), says the capacity to create emotion through northern tableaus is a skill echoed by the diverse cultures and people of Northern Ontario. “Storytelling is a catalyst for artistic choices, and working with northern talent whose stories interlace the fabric of this inspiring region broadens your range of creative options.”
“You can find a hockey arena in every corner of the country” he adds, “but Shoresy plays here. And that’s a testament to Northern Ontario’s ability to capture authentic looks for any story.”
Shoresy, which entered production for a third season in Fall 2023, is New Metric Media’s hockey-comedy-spin-off series (on Hulu/CraveTV) set in Sudbury, from the creators of the hit show Letterkenny. Leveraging local jargon, landmarks, and traditions (see the aptly named ‘Sudbury Blueberry Bulldogs’ hockey team), New Metric Media made quick fans of Canadian audiences, but their reach now far exceeds domestic devotees; showing the world what makes Northern Ontario great.
“When I started talking to New Metric about the job, they asked if I would be open to living up north” explains Kara Haflidson, Production Supervisor of Letterkenny and Shoresy. “And I said, not only would I be open to it — it would be the best!”
New Metric Media’s Shoresy has taken Canadian and international audiences by storm; a fitting analogy for the snowy-street-scenes depicted in season two.
Taking its comedy as seriously as its hockey, Northern Ontario has emerged as a go-to destination for narratives that delve into small-town-hijinks, but the land of a thousand faces is far from a one-trick pony.
The monochromatic forests of 17th century New England haunt in Robert Eggers’ The Witch. The glacial plains of the North Pole sting in Kim Ngyuen’s Two Lovers and a Bear. The well-worn walls of 1960s Saskatchewan summon in Shelley Niro’s Café Daughter. The halls of Canadian Residential Schools from the 1950s imprison in Stephen Campanelli’s Indian Horse. And the arid fields of a distant dystopian future starve in 40 Acres, from Playback Magazine’s Director of the Year 2023, R.T. Thorne.
With creativity flowing from traditional and newly constructed collectives, Northern Ontario emerges as a filmmaker’s playground. Where imagination remains boundless, and exploration of the fantastic, the real, and the pensive is the name of the game.
Increasingly, the region is attracting high-impact projects that compel, evoke, and attract – evidenced by recent visits from Bryan Cranston and Allison Janney for Jon S. Baird’s highly anticipated Everything’s Going to be Great, filmed in North Bay.
For Dan Aykroyd, star of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town (filmed in Sudbury), returning to Northern Ontario is a no-brainer. “If I heard about another movie shooting up here that I could be in, I’d rocket right up here, no problem. You’ve got really friendly people who are most welcoming and glad to have us, and we’re glad to be here.”
No stranger to star power, Northern Ontario hosted Ethan Hawke and Carmen Ejogo for their feature film Born to Be Blue, and continues to attract high-level talent.
A prosperous, new norm for Northern Ontario, the expanding Film & TV production industry brings about new opportunities for filmmakers to realize their visions alongside an experienced workforce with a shared passion for the art of storytelling. Higher-budget projects (think Skymed Season 2 & Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City) have unified stakeholders in the push for high-end studio space additions in major municipalities.
By 2025, it is estimated that Northern Ontario will have added hundreds of thousands of quality sound stage square footage to the province’s impressive roster between completed and planned developments across the region, including Freshwater Production Studios, White Owl Film Studios, Mukwa Studios, Trillium Pictures, and Stardust Pictures. All of which follow the footsteps of the trailblazing Northern Ontario Film Studios (NOFS) who in 2012 opened the region’s first production studio and helped kickstart the industry.
For Ontario Film Commissioner Justin Cutler, studio space development in the north is the next logical step. “Northern Ontario has been on a 20-year growth trend and that’s because they’ve developed a great reputation with producers to create top caliber content. It also offers great support from the municipal film office and regional organizations like CION to create a soft landing when productions arrive. That stability and reassurance is a major draw for Northern Ontario.”
With four-season settings and adaptable landscapes fit for any script, Northern Ontario’s looks, sprawled across 800,000 km² of accessible terrain, are matched in allure by the region’s generous financial incentives. “Northern Ontario offers a diversity in landscape and a great, welcoming environment”, states Mark Montefiore, President of New Metric Media. “There’s a million and one benefits to shooting there, and the regional tax credit on top of that is a great booster.”
Projects filming in Northern Ontario can cash up to $2 million of production support, through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC)’s Film and Television Stream, accompanied by the regional 10% bonus added to the Ontario Film & Television tax credit.
Take the lead in Northern Ontario and become the next big thing. CION offers consulting services to help producers navigate incentives, find studio space, and discover hidden-gem resources. Add to this the Film & TV Project Pitch Exchange, a free-to-join project support program that arranges location tours customized to your creative aspirations, and you’ve got everything you need to run the show in Northern Ontario.
