Vancouver director looking for Kamloops house as set for next movie
A Vancouver-based writer and director is looking for a kitchen in Kamloops to film his next movie in, one that looks like it belongs to an abuela, or Spanish grandmother.
Javier Badillo is appealing to residents to help locate the perfect setting for his upcoming sci-fi comedy Lupe Q and the Galactic Earworms to be filmed in partnership with Askem Productions in the Tournament Capital next year.
“We’re looking for someone interested in offering their house to film in,” he said. “The abuela house is a little aged with love, a bungalow, one or two stories, nothing fancy. It’s a well-lived in house in a rundown neighbourhood that a family has been in for 30 years.”
The perfect house will have a front door that goes right through to the kitchen where most of the action takes place, where the grandma and protagonist play guitar and cook traditional meals. There should be an exit through the back so the characters can leave the house from the back door.
“Ideally there is a spot outside for the characters to hide, like a fence or the back alley, bushes or trees where they can conceal themselves,” Badillo said.
Badillo is a Venezuelan-Canadian film director, writer and producer who completed his first full length film, a war drama called Roads of Ithriyah, in 2022, which was filmed in Kamloops. He’s written and produced several shorter films in his career that have earned awards at film festivals across the country.
Lupe Q and the Galactic Earworms, which was written by Badillo and his wife, is about a three-person punk rock high school band whose music is so terrible it’s the only thing to stop an alien invasion.
“These kids play music that is so annoying but think they’re only teens and don’t know how to save the planet,” Badillo said. “The FBI tries to coerce them into fighting for them but they don’t trust government and run away. The aliens land, kidnap the kids’ family members and take them to an orbiting space station.”
The teens have to use their “annoying punk rock" to kill the aliens and bring their family back.
“I don’t know what we were thinking when we wrote this,” Badillo said. “Should we go to a space station? OK.”
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The sci-fi comedy will be filmed in several locations, including two high schools, in Kamloops for two or three weeks in July next year if everything comes together as planned.
The filming in the abuela house will take a maximum of two days and specific arrangements can be made with the homeowner.
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“Filming creates a big disturbance, it can be stressful for a homeowner so we can put them in a hotel,” Badillo said. “We’ll meet the owner and work out a deal, see what they want.”
If you are interested in submitting photos of your house to be used as a set, email the film commission for the Thompson Nicola Regional District, Terri Hadwin at thadwin@tnrd.ca.
Go here for more information and step by step instructions on how to be listed in the film commission’s film friendly database under the quick link “List my Property.”
To learn more about Javier Badillo and the production of Lupe Q and the Galactic Earworms, go here.
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