by Brent Eades
But we can’t watch it… ah well.
Readers will know that over the past few years Almonte has emerged as “mini Hollywood North” — or so some news stories have dubbed us — after the shooting of several feature films here in town and the area.
The latest of those, entitled Christmas Festival of Ice, debuts tonight on the Hallmark Channel — which, sadly, appears to be utterly unavailable here in Canada. However, Hallmark does thoughtfully provide some short clips and interviews about the film, which you can find here: http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/christmas-festival-of-ice
The fact-finding website Heavy.com posted a piece titled “Where Was Hallmark’s Christmas Festival of Ice Filmed?,” which had this to say:
In the movie, the Christmas Festival of Ice takes place in a small New England town. But in reality, the movie was actually filmed in a beautiful Canadian town.
Christmas Festival of Ice was filmed in the beautiful town of Almonte in Canada.
The city’s local newspaper, The Millstone, proudly shared this fact in February.
Many of the small town locations you see in the movie were filmed on Almonte’s Mill Street to give off the feel of a small New Hampshire town. An American flag was even added to the town to give off the perfect vibe.
Baker Bob got a shout-out too:
Also rented out for filming was Baker Bob’s. Many of the extras in the movie were local residents. Bob Graff, owner of Bob’s Bakery, said: “I guess we are a mini Hollywood of the Valley… It highlights that we’ve got a very pretty town, a very photogenic town…”
There are various links to the film on YouTube already, but those are either poor quality (and likely not legit) or different films entirely. With luck a proper copy may make it to us in time.
In the meantime it’s certainly fun to once again see Almonte serving as the film version of the ‘ideal small town’.
