Photo: Monique Tamminga

Summertime Christmas trees in downtown Summerland as a film crew hit town in July.

The film industry throughout the Okanagan region has seen a recent boom in interest with filmmakers wary of heading south of the border, and the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen is hoping to capitalize on the momentum. 

At an RDOS meeting Thursday, Summerland and rural Summerland board directors Doug Holmes and Riley Gettens voiced support for the idea of a district-wide approach to attracting filmmakers, with an agreed-upon unified price range. 

“I’d hate to see where our different communities are communities competing against each other [for films],” Holmes said.

Rather than see the cities and districts throughout the South Okanagan vying to be the shoot locations, the RDOS would like to see support for a license across the entire area. 

Jon Summerland of the Okanagan Film Commission has had stacks of scripts on his desk recently, setting directors up locally.

“It's a shooting gallery up here, it looks beautiful all the time. It just looks like a place you want to film and it’s not letting up, it’s only growing,” Summerland said. 

One film company already has plans for eight film productions to get underway before Christmas. 

And Summerland says having a valley-wide permit fee would make the process easier for interested parties to not have to apply for multiple locations. 

“It definitely legitimizes us, makes us a lot more attractive to film companies that are bigger, they feel more secure," he said.

“Nobody is selling a location over another, we are selling the whole valley.” 

Summerland stated that it’s not a competition between places, but rather “it all depends on creativity” and what locations work best. 

The recent Christmas movie shooting in Summerland was the location that fit because it looked like New Mexico and would work best for the story, according to Summerland.  

“How does it look, where does it look better?"

While it’s not guaranteed to bring in more interested filmmakers to the area, Summerland agrees a unified approach would be beneficial. 

“When we have a professional-looking permitting process that says ‘Here's our location and here’s a contract to use the locations and here’s the fee,’ it’s way better.”

The RDOS will discuss the issue at a future meeting.