Pre-production is underway for Dreams of the Moon, a movie set in Sudbury when the Apollo 16 astronauts were here training for their trip to the moon in 1971.
Principal shooting will take place in the city, but exteriors will be shot in South Africa because Sudbury's landscape no longer looks like the moon.
"We are going to shoot the rock hills (in South Africa) because Sudbury no longer has that … just little patches," director and producer Alfons Adetuyi told Sudbury.com when he was in town recently.
Regreening efforts have been a success, Adetuyi said.
"I've scouted all over. Which is fine for Sudbury, but not for my back lot. I have looked all over, but it is not what it was" in 1971.
Adetuyi was a special guest at Sudbury Indie Cinema's Oscar Gala on March 10 and had an opportunity to talk about his latest project.
Dreams of the Moon tells the story of a young Black girl living in a small mining town who is inspired by the Apollo 16 team. She dreams of becoming an astronaut.
The story is based on a coming-of-age script Adetuyi wrote early in his career. He has written the screenplay for Dreams of the Moon with Dennis Foon.
Foon is best known for his screenplay for "Indian Horse," about an Indigenous boy who becomes a hockey star. Shot in Sudbury and Peterborough, it was the highest-grossing English Canadian film in 2018.
Adetuyi's company, Toronto-based Inner City Films, is producing Dreams of the Moon with Spier Films, a production, financing and sales company with offices in South Africa, England and Iceland.
Previously Spier and Adetuyi worked together on the movie Loved Jacked.
The script for this 2018 romantic comedy was co-written by Adetuyi's equally talented brother and frequent collaborator, Robert, and was shot in Hamilton and South Africa.
For Adetuyi, the son of Nigerian immigrants growing up in a mining town far away from the glamourous bright lights of Hollywood, a career in filmmaking must have seemed like an impossible dream.
But his arts teacher at Sudbury Secondary School, Jack Smith, encouraged Adetuyi to experiment with the school's video and film equipment.
After high school, he enrolled in the film course at Fanshawe College in London, Ont. Later, he had an opportunity to attend the Canadian Film Centre, founded by filmmaker Norman Jewison in Toronto.
Adetuyi paid his dues working in advertising and shooting industrial films and videos while the Canadian film industry matured just in time to meet the insatiable demand for content – especially for stories that reflect diverse audiences – created by cable television and streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon.
He has directed and produced numerous prime-time features, documentaries, dramas and lifestyle series that have been sold to more than 60 countries.
These include films such as Hallmark’s Heritage Holiday and Lifetime’s Miracle in Motor City, starring Smokey Robinson, founder of the Motown group The Miracles.
In 2011, his crew came to Sudbury to shoot High Chicago, a story based on his father, Joseph, a man with an interesting idea to open a drive-in theatre in Africa.
When Joseph retired in October 1989, he was featured in The Inco Triangle as the first Black man to work at Inco.
His sons are trailblazers for Black filmmakers.
In 2021, Adetuyi and his younger brother, Amos, were winners of the Reelworld Film Festival Visionary Award, which is presented to individuals advocating for artists of colour in the entertainment industry.
Amos is the executive producer of the CBC legal drama Diggstown.
"I set out wanting to direct," said Adetuyi. "It has been my dream since I was an usher at the City Centre Cinemas downtown. I am doing exactly what I wanted to do."
Vicki Gilhula is a freelancer writer. Success is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.
