Shooting of silent feature film WEDA (working title) is under way in the Eastern Townships - with a host of big names on board for this ecological and comic story!
Magog, June 13, 2023 - For several months now, Magog producer/director Sylvain Viau and his regional team have been preparing to shoot WEDA, a feature-length silent comedy that follows a wild day in the life of environmentalist Walter.
This feature film project, in development for almost 10 years, is finally seeing the light of day, and some big names have answered the call, starting with Thierry Lhermitte and Michel Courtemanche, who have been attached to the project for over a year, and more recently Quebec artists Gaston Lepage and Mitsou, as well as American artists Zibby Allen and Rick Hoffman. Zibby Allen is best known for her role in the series Virgin River, and Rick Hoffman for his role as Lewis Litt in the series Suits.
Producer Sylvain Viau's company Iceworks Pictures is proud to be shooting in the Eastern Townships, with a crew made up largely of local personnel, as well as a good number of actors from the region, all in an effort to create a truly regional production. The 30-day shoot is mainly taking place at local train stations and golf courses.
Walter's character has been around for over twenty-five years: "Mr. Ecolo" was first created in 1997 for an environmental campaign in collaboration with the City of Montreal. Since 2002, the character, renamed "Walter", has been at the center of a series of animated programs produced by Sylvain Viau, including the feature film "Walter & Tandoori's Xmas" in collaboration with Société Radio-Canada, followed by a 13-episode live-action series entitled "Walter 100%" with distributor Nuevo Mundo. Since then, Iceworks Pictures has been actively developing the feature film WEDA, which has finally gone into production in 2023.
Despite the unusual nature of a silent production in 2023, this film format still retains all its relevance, due to its universality and ability to reach a wide audience, thus fulfilling the creators' aim of spreading an ecological message on a large scale. What's more, this format works tremendously well for comedy, and WEDA is sure to reference in a few ways the works of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.
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Source:
Rebecca Rowley
Production Manager WEDA
514-862-2577 rebecca@iceworkspictures.com
Photo credits: Laurence Grandbois Bernard
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