How a Lowertown agency is fostering a growing economic and cultural sector
By Joel Weiner
Movies for cinemas and TV are big business, and a not-for-profit organization headquartered in Lowertown is attracting more and more international producers to make them in our city. It’s the Ottawa Film Office (OFO), located in a historic building at the northeast corner of Murray and Parent Streets.
Two talented women are the OFO’s mainstay – Sandrine Pechels de Saint Sardos, Ottawa’s newest Film Commissioner, and Stephanie Davy, the Communications and Marketing Officer. The Commissioner is a Parisian who recently arrived in our city after senior film industry positions in Los Angeles, New York, Toronto and Montreal. Davy, an Ottawa native, has worked with the office for several years, first starting with the former Ottawa-Gatineau Film and Television Development Corporation.
“Our job is to build and expand the city’s film and television industry,” the Commissioner explains. “We do this by focusing on development, retention, competitiveness, and enhancement. The goal is to attract productions to Ottawa that create jobs and stimulate the local economy.”
The OFO and its industry are clearly succeeding. Last year, live-action filming brought over $40 million into Ottawa, money that is spent on local production crews, actors, hotels, restaurants and other services. That was up significantly from $28.5 million in 2019 before COVID-19 brought everything to a halt in early 2020. Add another $50-60 million from local animation studios and the combined windfall for the city was around $100 million.
Lowertown businesses benefit from that spending to a respectable extent, although the exact amount is difficult to quantify. From paying to use space and buying last-minute supplies to supplementing the catered meals with visits to local restaurants and coffee shops, movie producers, casts and crews do spend money in our neighbourhood.
Fourteen feature-length films and several television series have already been shot in Ottawa this year, and Commissioner Pechels de Saint Sardos expects the growth trend to continue. “Streaming services, like Netflix and Hulu, need to produce more and more films,” she notes, “and many TV broadcasters still air movies-of-the-week. We’ve been able to tap that appetite. That’s why 30 feature-length films were shot in Ottawa in 2021 instead of the average 20 in previous years. And so far, the numbers are looking good for 2022.”
There are lots of reasons why movie producers choose Ottawa, and Lowertown is one of them. “At least half of the films made in the city are partly shot in Lowertown,” reports Stephanie Davy. “The Byward Market is obviously a huge attraction, especially with its courtyards, but so are many of the parks and historic buildings in Lowertown.”
Most of the films that shoot in Ottawa are made for television, but Hollywood comes calling, too.
Henry Winkler, Michael Keaton, Dakota Fanning and Jennifer Lawrence are some of the many big names who have filmed in Ottawa in recent years, and they’ve all been spotted in Lowertown at one point or more during their stays either working in front of a camera or just enjoying the sights.
Among the movies made more substantially in Lowertown in the past few years are “Sacrifice,” with Hollywood stars Christian Slater and Cuba Gooding Jr., and “Clown” a horror film produced by Eli Roth who is famous for the genre. Both used St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts, at the corner of St. Patrick and Cumberland Streets, as their set. Most recently, the Oprah Winfrey Network just wrapped up “Song & Story: Amazing Grace” at Cathcart Park and the Market, and “On the Count of Three,” shot here in last year starring Henry Winkler, was released in theatres in May.
Lowertown is lucky to reap the dividends of movie-making in Ottawa, but we’re not the only attraction because Canada’s capital is a versatile location. “We have it all,” says Commissioner Pechels de Saint Sardos. “From quaint, small towns to big city looks, not to mention rural settings and historic architecture, the Ottawa region is unparalleled in its diversity and proximity of locations. This city really is a jewel.”
When Parliament Hill, the Rideau Canada, office towers, grand homes, working-class streets and sites that can stand in for the Middle East are added to the mix, the Ottawa area offers producers an impressive roster of options. “There are other incentives as well,” notes Stephanie Davy. “Producers are also drawn here because of competitive provincial tax credits, experienced crews and great support services like casting and equipment rentals.” In fact, more than 95 percent of the movie crews shooting in Ottawa are residents of the city – another example of the film industry’s local spin-off effect – and many learned their craft at the Film and Media Production Program at Algonquin College’s School of Media & Design.
Ottawa was among the first Canadian jurisdictions to restart after the live-action film industry was shut down by the pandemic in 2020. And it was also quick to rebound – even despite an array of new challenges arising from the pandemic. One was the increase in production costs due to the need for personal protective equipment, testing, and quarantine for foreign cast and crew. Another was the hesitancy of many property owners to have film crews in their space.
Given the economic spinoff, there’s good reason for Lowertown businesses to help encourage more filming in the neighbourhood. One way is by listing their properties as a film-friendly location with the OFO. That information will be posted on its website (www.ottawa.film) for producers to see and, if interested, contact the owner directly to make arrangements.
Through its promotional efforts, the Ottawa Film Office is ensuring that Ottawa’s screen-based media industry is no longer one of the city’s best kept secrets. And now, it’s no longer one of Lowertown’s either.