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Tenure application reveals filming details of Netflix production The Mother in northwest B.C.

Filming involves the Second Unit stunt team, snowmobiles, trained wolves and explosives
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Director Niki Caro (left) with ‘The Mother’ star Jennifer Lopez on set in Vancouver. (Twitter/@FilmUpdates)

A Great Lakes Productions application to the B.C. government for a temporary licence in Smithers reveals details of the filming activities currently taking place for the Netflix production The Mother in the area.

The Filming Activity Letter accompanying the application describes the production as a “feature length film that will be released on the Netflix platform and is being directed by Niki Caro (Mulan, Whale Rider) and starring Jennifer Lopez. This film would be under the title Action/Thriller with the logline; When her violent past catches up with her, a woman in hiding from her criminal ex must work with a CIA agent to save the daughter she gave up for adoption years earlier.”

Three filming locations in the Smithers area are identified. These are: Opal Mine (between 10 and 11 kilometre markers on McDonell Lake Road, Microwave Ridge (off the Telkwa River Forest Road) and The Prairie (atop Hudson Bay Mountain).

Filming in Smithers involves the production company’s second unit stunt team. The letter notes the scenes being filmed are snowmobile scenes with stunt performers driving the machines.

The stunt unit comprises approximate 60-150 cast and crew, the letter states.

Helicopters are being used to ferry cast and crew to and from the locations as well as personal vehicles, shuttle vans and work trucks.

It says approximately 25 snowmobiles will be used for transport and as props.

There is also a potential trained caribou and wolves may be used in the filming as well as artificial snow, atmospheric smoke, firearms and explosives including “det cord, black powder, sand and potentially a little gas and small charge boxes in the show to create a snow explosion.”

The letter also contains an extensive section on safety including COVID-19, drone, helicopter, snowmobile, firearm and polytechnics safety.

Finally, it notes the production will work with the Wet’suwet’en to mitigate environmental impacts and return in the spring of 2022 to make any necessary reparations.

Members of the unit started arriving in Smithers approximately three weeks ago and actual filming began Nov. 7.

The full application can be found on the B.C. government website: comment.nrs.gov.bc.ca/applications.



editor@interior-news.com

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Aerial view of the staging area at the fall fairgrounds in Smithers for the Netflix movie The Mother. (Eric Becker photo)


Thom Barker

About the Author: Thom Barker

After graduating with a geology degree from Carleton University and taking a detour through the high tech business, Thom started his journalism career as a fact-checker for a magazine in Ottawa in 2002.
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