Hamilton’s Chris Giroux says he’s beaming with pride being able to show off his hometown on some of the biggest screens across North America.
It’s happening with release of Canadian romantic comedy, The End of Sex – now showing in several large cities, including New York and Los Angeles.
“It’s been such a joy to see an independent film like ours shot here, produced here, we did all the prep work and all the filming here,” Giroux said.
Starring Winnipeg-born Jonas Chernick of TV’s The Border and Schitt’s Creek alumni Emily Hampshire, the Hamilton production follows a couple in their 40s looking to reignite passion in their relationship after shipping two kids off to camp.
“They’ve had a bit of a dry patch … looking to spice up their relationship and really find what that relationship means to each other,” Giroux explained.
Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2022, the film was penned by Chernick and directed by Canadian Sean Garrity, best known for Inertia – an award winner for Best Canadian First Feature Film at TIFF in 2001.
Chernick and Hampshire are no strangers to working on rom-coms, having teamed up in the 2012 Garrity-directed My Awkward Sexual Adventure.
Giroux says the duo’s chemistry carries on in The End of Sex.
“We really kind of consider this a spiritual sequel in a sense, because that (Awkward) was really about people in their late 20s, early 30s kind of going on that dating journey,” he said.
Vortex Productions, a company Giroux is a stakeholder with, says some 20 movies have been shot by the entity in the Hamilton over the last three and a half years.
Accessibility and unique locations, like wineries, Victorian houses and industrial areas, have provided plenty of backdrop options for filming.
“You’ll notice the skyline, the downtown core, we were on James Street,” Giroux said.
“We were really jumping all over the city on this one.”
Some of the biggest content creators, like Netflix and Amazon Prime, have also dropped some of their features in the municipality.
Amazon’s The Boys, The Handmaid’s Tale and Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy were just some notable productions that used Hamilton’s infrastructure last year.
“If you were a filmmaker or working in the industry, Toronto was really the the main place in Ontario to kind of be,” Giroux shared.
“Now you’ve kind of seen booms in Hamilton, booms in North Bay, London … Ottawa, which has been really amazing to see.”
The End of Sex opened across North American over the weekend with the hometown screening at the Westdale Theatre Wednesday night.
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