Fredericton to screen N.B.-made Hollywood feature
Last Updated: Thursday, November 5, 2009 | 1:38 PM ET
CBC News
Fifty new films shot in New Brunswick this year will make their debut at the Silver Wave Film Festival this weekend, including a Hollywood feature film.
American Sunset will have its world premiere in California on Monday, but the New Brunswickers who helped make it will get a sneak preview Thursday during the festival's opening gala in Fredericton.
The film, about a man's wife being kidnapped during a vacation back home, was made almost entirely in New Brunswick, said Tony Merzetti, executive director of the New Brunswick Filmmakers' Co-operative.
"It was made as pretty much a 99 per cent New Brunswick film," he said.
"There was a couple of the lead actors — Corey Haim and Frank Molina — who came from outside. But the rest of the cast was all from New Brunswick. The crew was 99 per cent New Brunswickers."
It's proof that the feature film industry has come of age in New Brunswick, Merzetti said, noting the film coincides with the 30th anniversary of the New Brunswick Filmmaker's Co-op.
American Sunset stars Toronto-born Haim, a teen heart-throb from the '80s, and Angela Cullins, of Hartland, N.B., who plays his wife.
"I am so excited," said Cullins, a 10-year member of the film co-op. "I could not have asked, nor did I ever dream that this would happen. I've got so much support here — the film co-op, friends, family.
"And for New Brunswick to get the attention and exposure that it did get throughout this film is just amazing."
The company that produced American Sunset, Global Universal, shot a second film in the province last summer, and it's trying to market four other New Brunswick-made feature films.
It also has financing to shoot another one, which even has New Brunswick featured in the working title — Plaster Rock, the town southeast of Grand Falls that's home to the World Pond Hockey Championships.
