Filming locations for Power of the Dog, Belfast and Oscar Nominees compete for tourism boom

Writer and Multimedia Producer·NZ Herald·

27 Mar, 2022 11:58 PM7 mins to read

Jane Campion's Otago-shot film The Power of the Dog is set to take home Oscars at the Academy Awards. Photo / Kirsty Griffin, Netflix

Jane Campion's The Power of The Dog goes into the 94th Academy Awards with an impressive 12 Oscar nominations. It's on the brink of becoming New Zealand's most critically successful movie.

If the Kiwi Western picked up a statuette for each of these categories, it would be the most successful Oscars haul in history, beating Peter Jackson's The Return of the King, eighteen years ago.

While it's impossible to predict the Academy, who love their awards drama, there's one award that the movie would be a 'shoe in' for most gorgeous backdrops.

Maniototo in Central Otago was a stand-in for 1930s Montanna. The South Island grasslands framed Ari Wegner's award-worthy images, who earned a historic nomination as director of photography.

Although actor Sam Elliot caused a stir last month (asking what a woman "from down there" knows about the American West) there are others who want to see more of 'Maniototo' Midwestern screen appeal.

Newspapers from the LA Times to the UK Independent have written travel guides on where the film was made. Although Campion has said it is a "mythical, romantic West", a place only visitable in film.

This has not stopped Film Otago seeing the camera-friendly good looks of Cumberbatch, Dunst and the plains as a valuable tool for "promoting the region".

It's not the first time New Zealand has been an on-screen double for another country. From Narnia to Nepal, over the years Aotearoa has played exotic places, real and fictional.

The Best Pictures this year are a treat for travel lovers and a bit of cinema escapism. The winner is likely to not only boost box office numbers but also tourists, curious to see where these stories were made.

Here are the places hoping their pictures will win big tonight.

BELFAST

Mountcollyer Street and York Road, Belfast

Sir Ken Branagh's autobiographical film of growing up in troubled Northern Ireland.
A story about how a family can leave 1960s Belfast but the city never leaves them - it
tours to the working-class community. It featured places remembered and still visitable from the actor's childhood - including the 'Bendy Bar' from the Mountcollyer Street park railings, through which kids would visit and the redbrick buildings of York Road.

Dead Centre Tours, which runs walking history tours of the city's sectarian violence, initially worried about the treatment of the weighty subject.

"I'm no Barry Norman, but visually I loved it," said lead tour guide Paul Donnelly, who did not have high expectations.

"Looking through the eyes of a nine-year-old is a relief and a release and yet still a learning tool."

CODA

Gloucester, Massachusetts
Set in a struggling Massachusetts fishing village, Gloucester's Fish Pier plays a focal point for the American epic. Emelia Jones plays the only hearing member in a family fishing business run by deaf relatives. The Coda to the New England seaport - whose hidden talent for music goes unheard. Like the film, Gloucester on Cape Ann is a diamond in the rough, full of fishing towns and coastal quays which have seen better days.

DRIVE MY CAR

Hiroshima City
Japan's historic city is riding on hopes that the Oscar nomination of Dive my Car will reignite tourist interest in the city. While Japan's borders remain closed, domestically the film has been a boon.

In a city that's best known for having an atomic bomb dropped on it, the local tourism is relieved at showing the region in a new light. Until now, it's a region that has been frozen in the minds of tourists on 6 August 1945.

"We have more than 10 bus tour reservations for April alone," Masae Ishida, the head of Kure's Mitarai tourism association told Nikkei news agency. Linking the interest to the film's success "We had not seen anything like this for a while," he said.

DON'T LOOK UP

Cambridge, Massachusetts
The cinematic Harvard campus and the River Charleston have appeared in countless films about child prodigies and troubled academics. From Good Will Hunting to The Social Network, the historic New England city has as many Hollywood credits as Nobel Laureates.

It was the perfect place for neurotic scientists - played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence - to prowl around warning of impending doom.

DUNE

Jordan and the United Arab Emirates
The sandy sci-fi epic, Dune makes the most of exotic and difficult to get to filming locations.

Jordan's Wadi Rum needs no introduction and has been on Hollywood's map since Lawrence of Arabia and Indiana Jones' Last Crusade.

However, it is the use of Abu Dhabi's Empty Quarter that might have the most to gain from appearing in the film. Arrakis - a fictional desert planet inhabited by monster sandworms and magical power sources - is a popular tourist destination many tourists already know.

Emirati newspaper The National reported that the cast stayed

on-site at luxury resort Qasr Al Sarab

. The newly renovated oasis hotel is hidden within the sand dunes, with private plunge pools and sundecks that look out over the desert.

KING RICHARD

Los Angeles
Courtside-drama starring Will Smith was largely filmed at Los Angeles' The Claremont Club on Monte Vista Avenue. The Fresh Prince plays 'King' Richard Williams - farther and coach of Serena and Venus arguably the most successful siblings in American sport.

The courts are open to non-members at US$30 an hour for lessons if you wish to brush up on your racquet-work.
Williamses watch out!

LICORICE PIZZA

The Los Angeles Valley
San Fernando Valley is a part of California perpetually stuck in the 1970s, so was a natural filming location for this coming of age drama in a valley high school.

Filmed at high schools up and down Sherman Way, the movie set in Hollywood's backyard is close to the backlots of Universal Studios. The era's movie-making is in the landscape from San Fernando to Santa Monica beach.

NIGHTMARE ALLEY

Buffalo, New York
Mexican-American Guillermo del Toro has visited America's other border at Niagara and a snowy Buffalo State. The waterfalls are one of America's most visited Natural parks, however, the cameras for the 1930s noir are more interested in the art deco style of Buffalo, New York.

The austere Buffalo City Hall and blocky Walter J. Mahoney State Office Building are the stuff of nightmares. Explore Buffalo runs Art Deco tours of the town that sprang up on the Canadian border during prohibition, a popular rum smuggling route.

THE POWER OF THE DOG

Montanna the 'Mythical West'
Since Brad Pitt's a River Runs Through it the big skies of Montana have attracted moviemakers from across the globe. It also attracts 11.13 million tourists a year to the Yellowstone and Glacier national park areas.

It's unlikely that Otago will dent the enthusiasm for the state. As the world's oldest national park, Yellowstone is celebrating 150 years, bringing extra visitors and events to the American wilderness conservation area. Even Sam Elliot would approve.

WEST SIDE STORY

New York, New York
You'll want to be in America after watching Spielberg's twist on the Bernstein and Sondheim musical. New York City is the unmistakable stomping ground of the Jets and the Sharks, in the toe-stomping beats.

As Broadway reopens to full houses in New York, you can go from the west side of Manhattan's village-like streets and the setting of the first-generation Puerto Rican immigrants to a Broadway Auditorium in a matter of minutes.