Sir Anthony Hopkins outside Forge Valley Storage in Vernon, where scenes were filmed for the movie.

(CHARLOTTE HELSTON / iNFOnews.ca)

"YOU'LL SEE ENDERBY RIGHT FROM THE LOGO TO THE CLOSING CREDITS"

ENDERBY - A movie shot in the North Okanagan will be screened at one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world.

Go With Me, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, Julia Stiles, and Ray Liotta will be featured in the Venice Film Festival this September. Enderby Entertainment producer Rick Dugdale, who grew up in his company’s namesake, says he’s extremely pleased with the final product.

“I think the film is really good,” Dugdale says. “Obviously I’m close to it, but the reactions we’re getting from people… you don’t get into Venice without the film being good.”

Post production started immediately after filming wrapped up in the North Okanagan, and was done in Sweden, where director Daniel Alfredson, known for The Girl Who Played With Fire is from. Post-production is typically the longest phase of filmmaking, often taking between eight to 18 months, but things went quickly with Go With Me, completed after just six months in the studio.

Dugdale made frequent visits to Sweden and was deeply involved in the post-production process, watching the cuts over and over again, making notes and adjustments.

“I’ve probably watched it 300 times, not even making that up,” Dugdale says.

And now, for the first time, he’s begun watching it with an audience. A recent screening put the film before a small group of about 30 people in L.A. and Dugdale kept a close eye not on the screen, but on the faces of those watching it.

“You feel completely naked because you’re showing your film to people for the first time. In a lot of cases, you see reactions you never expected. The coolest part is to witness an outsider take in the film for the first time,” he says.

In the next few weeks, a private screening will be held in Vancouver to unveil the finished product to cast and crew. So far, the only actor who’s seen it is Hopkins.

“He thinks it’s one of the best films he’s done in a long time. He might have mentioned Silence of the Lambs,” Dugdale says. “He feels the same way we do, that we executed it exactly as we intended to.”

Dugdale describes the movie as dark, bleak and tragic — think Deliverance meets Winter's Bone — with a few token moments that will make you laugh. The story revolves around a young woman played by Stiles who recently returned to her hometown only to get harassed by an ex-cop turned crime-lord played by Liotta. The woman turns to a former logger, played by Hopkins, and his young sidekick, to help her stand up to her sociopathic stalker.

Dugdale hopes to emerge from upcoming film festivals such as the one in Venice with a good distribution deal, and says people back home can expect to find out about release dates sometime after that. He expects the film could be out sometime between late December and early May. And when it does, audiences are guaranteed to recognize locations around Enderby and the North Okanagan.

“You’ll see Enderby right from the logo to the closing credits,” Dugdale says.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston at chelston@infonews.ca or call 250-309-5230. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

News from © iNFOnews, 2015