Vancouver Screen Scene: Seth Rogen and Supergirl, Japanese stars, and more

Survival is a recurring theme in this week’s roundup of screen-related news in Vancouver, cropping up both as the subject of storylines and a TV series that might need to find ways to avoid the chopping block.

First up, let’s start on a note of levity with a hometown connection.

Vancouver’s own Seth Rogen (Superbad, Knocked Up), along with Bill Hader (Saturday Night Live, Trainwreck) and Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover, Birdman), are bringing the funny to town when they start shooting the space-based comedy The Something, starting on July 11.

The feature film follows a group of astronauts who have been stranded in space for years and discover another space ship. We’ll leave it to those comedic talents to find the humour in that situation. (Gravity gone wild, perhaps?)

Moving on to a more serious production, shooting begins today in Langley (located in southeastern Metro Vancouver) on the 13-episode post-apocalyptic thriller Aftermath.

Anne Heche (Hung, Men in Trees) and James Tupper (Revenge, Men in Trees), who are a real-life couple, star as parents of three teenagers who struggle to survive after natural disasters and supernatural creatures destroy civilization.

Heche plays Karen Copeland, who draws upon her combat and survival training as an Air Force pilot while Tupper plays Joshua Copeland, a university professor with insights into the apocalyptic events.

The series will be broadcast on Space in Canada and on Syfy in the U.S.

Meanwhile, a superhero is also facing a need to resort to survival skills—and Vancouver may be part of the rescue plan.

In a bid to save the show, the struggling TV series Supergirl may not only switch from CBS to the CW, CBS’ youth-oriented network, but it might also relocate to shooting from Los Angeles to Vancouver in an effort to cut costs for Season 2.

During an appearance on Hollywood Today Live on April 26, Canadian actor Tom Cavanagh, who plays Dr. Harrison Wells on The Flash which shoots in Vancouver, mentioned that he thinks that Supergirl will be joining the group of superhero series that film in Vancouver, such as Arrow.

(In the video below, he starts talking about Vancouver, which he calls a “coniferous jewel of a city”, around the 2:58 mark.)

Venturing beyond the world of Hollywood, Vancouver also played host to two acclaimed Japanese stars.

Ryuichi Sakamoto rose to fame as a member of the Yellow Magic Orchestra in the late 1970s, later becoming a solo artist and film score composer for features such as Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), in which he made his acting debut opposite David Bowie; The Last Emperor (1987); The Sheltering Sky (1990); and The Revenant (2015).

Sayuri Yoshinaga, who has starred in films such as A Chaos of Flowers (1988), Kabei: Our Mother (2008), and About Her Brother (2010), is a critically acclaimed star who has won four Japan Academy best actress awards.

The two celebrated Japanese talents made an appearance at the Vancouver International Film Centre’s Vancity Theatre on May 4 for a special screening of their film Nagasaki: Memories of My Son, directed by Yoji Yamada.

Yoshinaga plays a midwife in 1948 who is stunned by a visit from her son who she thought had died in the bombing of Nagasaki three years before but managed to survive.

Elsewhere in the city, the 2016 DOXA Documentary Film Festival got underway on May 5 and continues screening its well-curated list of documentaries until May 15.

Several documentary filmmakers and special guests have been and will be appearing at the festival, including French filmmakers Pascal Magontier (The Final Passage) and Claire Simon (Récréations, Les Bureaux de Dieu), Mexico’s Juan Manuel Sepúlveda (The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park), and Vancouver’s Brent Hodge (Pistol Shrimps) and John Bolton (Aim For the Roses).

For full details, including the festival schedule and screening information, visit the DOXA website.