Parks Canada rejects movie after learning First Nations in storyline

A movie production team was denied permission to shoot in the Rocky Mountain national parks after Parks Canada staff learned the film’s plot involved an indigenous gang leader.

“They expressed a real concern that this was not something they would favour,” said Mark Voyce, location manager for a film project that had been scheduled to start shooting later this month.

Voyce is working for Michael Shamberg, a film producer whose past credits include movies such

Erin Brockovich, A Fish Called Wanda, Garden State, Gattaca Get Shorty.

Shamberg is currently working on a project called Hard Powder, a crime drama ostensibly set in a Colorado ski town.

Action star Liam Neeson is to play an honest snowplow driver whose son is murdered by a local drug kingpin. He then seeks to dismantle the cartel, but his efforts spark a turf war involving a First Nations gang boss, played by First Nations actor, musician and Order of Canada member Tom Jackson.

Director Hans Petter Moland had hoped to shoot scenes in Banff, the Lake Louise townsite and ski hill, and the Columbia Icefields.

“He was enamoured of the beauty of the Columbia Icefields,” Voyce said. “He was very stubborn in insisting that if we were going to come here, that it was to shoot parts of these films in the national park.”

Voyce, who has previously organized movie shoots in national parks from Newfoundland’s Gros Morne to Pacific Rim on Vancouver Island, said the team began the application process with Parks Canada in December. He said he believed that by last week, only a few details needed to be cleaned up and that permissions would be granted.

LONDON — Margaret Atwood, Annie Proulx and Mary Gaitskill are among North American contenders for the international Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Atwood’s Shakespeare-inspired Hag-Seed, Proulx’s historical saga Barkskins and Gaitskill’s horsecentric saga The Mare are among 16 finalists announced Wednesday.

The prestigious prize is open to female English-language writers from around the world, and the longlist includes authors from Nigeria, South Africa, Canada, the United States, Britain and Ireland.

Contenders include Nigeria’s Ayobami Adebayo for Stay With Me, Britain’s Linda Grant for The Dark Circle Tremain for The Gustav Sonata.

The contenders will be whittled down to a shortlist on April 3, and the winner of the $37,000 prize will be announced June 7.

The annual award is officially named the Baileys Women’s Prize after its sponsor.