Following the shoot in Regina, the American-born Canadian actress will head to Hawaii to begin shooting the highly-anticipated series Hawaii Five-O for CBS.

The First Days ensemble all-star cast also includes:
… Byron Lawson: Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures (Shawn Ashmore), A Dangerous Man (Steven Seagal), Snakes on a Plane (Samuel L. Jackson), The Corrupter (Chow Yun Fat and Mark Wahlberg), Romeo Must Die (Jet Li) and Killer Instinct.
… Aleks Paunovic: Personal Effects (Ashton Kutcher, Michelle Pfieffer), Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Atlantis and Supernatural.

Saskatchewan actors in the film are Jody Peters, Alan Bratt and Ron Anderson.

“It’s incredible how supportive everyone has been for this film,” said producer Stephen Huszar. “It’s not often that a short film has such a high calibre cast and crew. We feel very fortunate to be able to work with this kind of talent.”

Written by Regina’s own Mauricio Carvajal and produced by Saskatoon’s Hulo Films, The First Days is a short film that places live action actors inside an animated world. The story is told from an immigrant’s point of view as he arrives in an unnamed host nation via a perilous journey on the open seas. Unable to speak the dialect, he enters the shabby cardboard city with his cat and a suitcase full of dreams. Soon after, his hopes turn to isolation and loneliness as his inability to communicate allows others to take advantage of him, which eventually ends in tragedy.

The style of film is magical realism, and will be told through a hybrid experience of animation and live action. The epicenter of the film is a model city built from cardboard. The expressionist-look will be shot in front of a green screen to digitally create an infinite cityscape in After Effects, portraying the live action characters and architecture within a 3D environment.

Carvajal, who will also serve as the film’s director, wrote the script from personal experiences. On December 30, 1999, he travelled from Bogota, Colombia to Regina. He was 17 years old, alone and didn’t speak a word of English. Seven months later, Carvajal was speaking English and enrolled in the U of R film program. He is now a Landed Immigrant, working full-time at Viterra, is enrolled in a Masters of Fine Arts with a specialization in immigration in film and continues to make films.

The First Days funders: SaskFilm, Canada Council and Saskatchewan Arts Board.

Photo credit: Vanessa Leanne Photography
View more production stills here