Getting the chance to land a role in a global TV production with no experience necessary might seem too good to be true, but Barbara Hager says it isn’t.
“We’re interested in finding people with a look and enthusiasm for sharing their culture,” says the Victoria-based filmmaker, explaining why she and creative collaborator Lisa Jackson are having an open casting call today and Wednesday for 1491: The Untold Story of the Americas Before Columbus, their ambitious docudrama series based on Charles C. Mann’s 1491: New Revelations of the Americas.
Hager, who co-wrote the Aarrow Productions/Animiki See Digital Inc. co-production with Marie Clements, is casting 35 indigenous actors for scenes filming here starting July 21.
“It’s nice to be home now,” said Hager, fresh from shooting footage among ruins and in jungles in locations including Taos Pueblo, New Mexico, Peru and the Yucatan in Mexico.
They’re seeking non-actors aged six to 65 who are descendants of indigenous people from Vancouver Island and North and South American aboriginal nations for the eight-part series.
Men, women, teenagers and children of Haida, Kwakwaka’wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Anishinaabe and Inuit ancestry are required for speaking and non-speaking roles.
Scenes filmed in local parks, wilderness settings and First Nations land in Oak Bay, Saanich and Sooke will depict indigenous ways of life dating back thousands of years.
Some sequences will also be shot at sets being built at McTavish School in North Saanich, including an Arctic whale-bone house and a cave in Argentina.
“We’re even shooting Chile here, believe it or not,” said Hager, referring to locations in Sooke
A major reason for the open call for aboriginal people was the emphasis on cultural authenticity integral to the series being broadcast on Aboriginal People’s Television Network and Germany’s ZDF.
“When we wrote the script we made a list of values, and authenticity was one of them,” she said. “We wanted to get permission from communities, and engage actors and experts from those communities.”
The informal open call takes place today and Wednesday from 5-9 p.m. at 721 Kings Rd., accessible via the Westbourne Place parking lot entrance behind the Andrew Sheret building.
Drop-ins are welcome. Anyone unable to attend can submit a solo photo to Ashley Hirt at [email protected], or call 204-298-4478.
