Lights, camera, action! in Brownsburg-Chatham.
Parts of the municipality were looking more like Hollywood between April 5 and 8, while Pine Hill is being used for scenes in the upcoming Starz drama series The Venery of Samantha Bird.
Several trailers for the cast and crews base camp are set up on rue MacVicar in Brownsburg in front of, and beside, the Aréna Gilles-Lupien. In Pine Hill, the fire hall on rue Gagné and the Hôtel du Chasseur on chemin-St-Michel were being used as the locations for filming.
“This is great visibility for our territory,” said Brownsburg-Chatham Mayor Kévin Maurice, at the municipal council meeting on Tuesday, April 4.
He and Director-General Jean-François Brunet were surprised when the municipality was approached by the production company. They only found out the week before filming was to begin.
Maurice said film and television production brings additional revenue to the municipality and he is hopeful for further production opportunities.
According to Hollywood entertainment newspaper Variety, The Venery of Samantha Bird is the story of the title character’s return to her hometown in New England, where she rekindles a seemingly perfect romance with her childhood sweetheart – but the relationship is not as perfect as it seems. Bird is portrayed by actress Katherine Langford.
Indeed, Pine Hill, with its Laurentian foothills and rolling streams, could easily be a stand-in for a New England village. Outside the Hôtel du Chasseur on the morning of Thursday, April 5, signs had gone up rebranding the hotel as The Ridge Bar-Patio-Restaurant. A police car for a fictitious town named “Little Yorn” was parked out front.
The Venery of Samantha Bird is an eight-episode series and is to premiere on Starz later this year.
