No local premiere for Okanagan film

An Okanagan premiere for the shot-in-the-Valley movie Distorted isn’t in the cards.

Minds Eye Entertainment, which produced the movie starring Christina Ricci and John Cusack, usually holds a local screening before a film’s wide release.

“The producers would normally have a local cast and crew screening a week before the June 22 release,” says Jon Summerland of the Okanagan Film Commission.

“However, they will be right in the middle of their (next) production, and there will be too much to arrange, so they will have to pass on it this time,” Summerland said.

Minds Eye is currently producing Daughter of the Wolf, a film starring Richard Dreyfuss and being shot in various Okanagan locations.

Distorted is about a woman who believes she is the subject of a mind-control experiment.

Summerland said it’s hard to estimate the economic impact of the movie being filmed in and around Kelowna and Vernon last summer.

“It’s hard to trace, but the entire film was done here, including prep and post-production, so other than (Ricci and Cusack) the entire budget would go through our banks and touch the Okanagan,” he said.

“Minds Eye now call the Okanagan home and they are responsible for paying a lot of mortgages,” he said.