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port it and attract big fish. Jason Cortlund,
co-director (along with Julia Halperin) of
the Austin-shot indie thriller Barracuda,
offers some perspective: “In terms of film
culture, Austin continues to grow as a city
for film lovers and moviemakers; Austin Film
Society’s development programs and their
world-class AFS Cinema are at the heart of
that,” he says. “But economically, it’s getting
harder every year. State of Texas legislators
did a political hit job on the incentive rebates
a couple of years ago.”
Although the state provides (through its
Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Pro-
gram) for marquee shows like AMC’s
Fear the Walking Dead, the incentive is down
75 percent from its peak a few years back and
some productions are considering other op-
tions. “While small-to-mid sized local produc-
tions rarely benefitted directly from those
limited funds, our regional actors and crew
rely on TV and big features to make ends
meet,” Cortlund says. “In the two and a half
years since we shot Barracuda, a surprisingly
large part of our crew moved away for work.”
He adds that while he is developing a TV
series that’s hopefully filmable in Texas,
his next two features will be shot in
New England and France.
Sara Seligman, co-writer and director of
the forthcoming Austin-shot border thriller
Coyote Lake, said that shooting in Bastrop,
just outside Austin, meant a dollar that
stretched further than expected, somewhat
balancing out the incentive issue: “Although
we didn’t have access to the tax incentives we
were able to save by shooting in Texas, which
was amazing because the town [of Bastrop]
itself has so much character!” Brian Gannon,
director of the Austin Film Commission, also
attested to the local color and mentioned
Austin’s increasingly storied film history, pop-
ulated by moviemakers like Richard Linklater
and Tobe Hooper who’ve lived and worked in
Austin while making movies.
“This continues today,” he said. “Austin’s a
great city with strong storytellers living here
and crafting independent works that are
distinctive and powerful. It’s a welcoming
community that’s continuously evolving, with
arthouse films being made side by side with
Hollywood films, TV series, and commercials.
We’ve also worked hard to be sure the state
incentives stay competitive so we can keep
productions here.” He also noted that Austin’s
reputation as an indie haven continues to
justify itself, with more than 30 niche film
festivals celebrating new work and arthouse
theaters like AFS and the Violet Crown
Cinema dedicated to exhibiting those films.
9
MONTREAL, QUEBEC
Montreal is sometimes referred to as
Canada’s “smoking and drinking sec-
tion,” and if that’s not cosmopolitan enough
for you, try this: Since November, physicians
of the Médecins francophones du Canada
have been in a one-year pilot program that
permits them to prescribe visits to the
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to patients
they believe may benefit from the healing
power of art. They might, for instance, take in
the abstract paintings of Jean-Paul Riopelle
at the MMFA or wander to the
Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything
exhibition at the Musée d’art contemporain
de Montréal (MAC) before it embarks on its
world tour in April 2019.
High art isn’t everyone’s cup of tea; you
might prefer a stroll through Montreal’s ultra-
hip Mile End neighborhood, offering vintage
dresses to bagel shops and brewpubs, or a
tour of St.-Laurent Boulevard in the Plateau
district, which is a scrolling canvas of street
art, so much so that mural tours have sprung
up in its wake. Montreal also has its own
Little Italy, with popular restaurants and wine
bars such as the new Mon Lapin (My Rabbit)
or the Pizzeria Napoletana, in business since
1948, or you can just grab a maple bacon
donut from the Trou de Beigne donut shop.
Is it any wonder the culture vultures at
Netflix are putting down roots here? In 2017
the streaming giant made a soft commitment
to invest $500 million in Canadian program-
ming over the next five years, as well as to
spend $25 million on Francophone content
exclusively, and in fall 2018 the company
claimed to be on track to exceed that pledge.
Netflix’s teen soccer drama 21 Thunder
was shot in Montreal last year, while the
Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston comedy
Murder Mystery was shot in the Le Plateau-
Mont-Royal borough this summer. The big
guns—literally—rolled in during the fall as
Roland Emmerich’s war epic Midway began
filming in Montreal. Montreal is known as a
reliable doubling city, having stood in for
New Delhi in The Day After Tomorrow
and as Saigon (with CGI palm trees) for
X-Men: Days of Future Past.10
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
“Memphis is funky,” says
Emmy and Grammy-winning
writer and moviemaker Robert Gordon
(Johnny Cash’s America). “Its people are
funky. You can get the L.A. feel in Nashville,
but in Memphis anything you make will have
an edge to it. It’s a down to Earth place gener-
ally, and pretense should be checked at thedoor. The crews are like the city: real, kind of
gritty, don’t mind getting dirty, but they clean
up nicely, too. Also, the Indie Memphis Film
Festival is not to be missed. Nearly all of it
happens within three blocks of screens, bars,
and food; offbeat programming that nods to
the region and has an international flavor.”
The edgy programming of The Indie Mem-
phis Film Festival is also paired with curation
and programming policies that reflect a social
consciousness; the festival’s commitment to
supporting black moviemakers was honored
in 2018 with the introduction of the Black
Creator’s Forum, a symposium of speaker
panels and workshops with prominent black
moviemakers, artists, and critics to engage on
a variety of subjects. The two-day event cul-
minated in a showcase in which moviemakers
could pitch projects to attendees.
Gordon credits the run of Memphis-set
John Grisham films in the 1990s as laying
down an infrastructure that has prepared the
city for crews of any size ever since, and notes,
“A lot of the city still looks like the 1960s,”
except for the cars. If that sounds like a
romantic place to film your next project, know
that producers are offered a 25 percent grant
on local spend, including expenditures, and
minimum spend is $200,000.
“Memphis is a great place to shoot,” Gordon
continues. “As a location, you can find streets
to match most any era, and most any condi-
tion. Also, the crews are skilled, eager and flex-
ible. People I’ve worked with (on non-union
shoots) are ready to do what’s needed, even if
it means duties not normally assigned. They’re
innovative and ready to try, and if you treat
people right, they’ll go the extra mile, deliver-
ing you images you’d never have imagined.
A friend of mine says, ‘Memphis is the town
where nothing happens but the impossible
always does.’”11
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Although the subject of bitter politi-
cal wrangling over the past three
years, Massachusetts’ generous 25 percent
tax incentive (with $50,000 minimum spend
and no caps) was declared “here to stay” by
a Boston news outlet in June 2018. The rea-
sons: Once-fierce opposition to the incentive
was seen to be M.I.A., and a consensus had
emerged that the credits were having a net
positive effect. The tax incentives will expire
in 2023, so advocates for the breaks would be
well-advised to not get too comfortable.
A Netflix-produced political thriller,
Wonderland, took to Dorchester, Boston for
filming in October, with Mark Wahlberg on
hand as the crew dusted the streets with a