‘Half Brothers’ is filming in N.M.

Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Los Lunas, Cedar Crest and Hatch among shooting locations

Mexican actor and producer Luis Gerardo Méndez recently learned he has two — and maybe three — half-brothers he wasn’t aware of.

Coincidentally, he was working on the script for a film that just started shooting in New Mexico about a Mexican man named Renato who discovers he has a half-brother living in the U.S. The movie, Half Brothers, will shoot for about a month in and around Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Los Lunas, Cedar Crest and Hatch.

“Sometimes fiction attracts information for your real life,” Méndez told radio host Mario Lopez during a syndicated radio interview that aired earlier this week.

The film’s plot, he told Lopez, follows the half-brothers as they take a road trip to “understand … why they never met before.” That path takes them along the same route their father took as an immigrant moving from Mexico to the United States.

While most of Méndez’s film and television work has been in Mexico, he recently appeared in the much-publicized Netflix comedy Murder Mystery, starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, and will be seen in the updated reboot of Charlie’s Angels later this year.

Actor Connor Del Rio plays Asher, the American half-brother, who is described in media materials as “free spirited.”

The New Mexico Film Office said the production will employ about 150 New Mexico crew members, 30 New Mexico actors and stunt performers, and at least 300 background players. (Email robertbaxtercasting@gmail.com if you want to work as an extra. Baxter said he is looking for “all ethnicities and ages, especially Hispanic men, women and children.”)

Eric Witt, executive director of the Santa Fe Film Office, said the production company behind the film, Focus Features, has applied for a permit to shoot at the Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch, about 20 miles southwest of Santa Fe. A number of films, many of them Westerns, have been shot there since the mid1950s, including The Man from Laramie, Silverado, the 2007 version of 3:10 to Yuma, and Cowboys and Aliens.

Witt said “serious upgrades” have been made to the movie ranch, which makes it attractive for filmmakers shooting contemporary stories.

New Mexico’s financial incentives for movie companies shooting in the state have expanded since former Gov. Gary Johnson, then a Republican, signed a movie incentive program into law in the 1990s. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, signed legislation earlier this year that raises the cap on what can be paid to film and television productions to $110 million from $50 million in a year. That legislation includes an additional 5 percent tax credit for companies that shoot in rural areas, such as Hatch, widely known as a chile-growing area in Southern New Mexico.

Eligible film productions now can get a 25 percent rebate on certain expenses in the state, while television series that shoot in New Mexico for longer-term projects can get a refund on up to 30 percent of expenses. Film industry advocates say it pays off for the state financially, with the industry bringing about $464 million to New Mexico in fiscal year 2017. Critics question those figures and say it’s unlikely the incentives are worth the effort.

Andy Nuñez, a former state legislator who now is mayor of Hatch, said Monday he hopes Half Brothers injects some money into the community of about 1,650 people.

Nuñez said he received a call “out of the blue” from a representative of the film company asking for permission to film a scene in an old Catholic church that has not been in regular use lately. He said he thinks it’s the first time Hatch has served as a location for a professional film production.

Nuñez said he couldn’t estimate the economic impact on the town, which has only one motel, “but a lot of those films folks will come out to eat.”

The film office said the production will employ about 150 New Mexico crew members and 30 New Mexico actors.