Valérie Plante heads to Hollywood to woo studios, sell them on filming in Montreal

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is headed to Hollywood on a mission to promote Quebec's economic interests and make connections in the booming film industry town.

Plante's trip will last from Nov. 12 to 15, where she will be in and out of meetings with major American studios.

Montreal's ability to stand in for other cities like New York and Paris makes it an attractive place to film, said Plante.

The trick is getting the word out.

"Once they come here, the big productions love it. But at the same time, I think our goal is that it doesn't stay a secret. We want it to be well-known — that people are thinking about Montreal right away," she said.

During the trip, Plante will team up with Quebec's film and television council, the provincial funding body SODEC and representatives from major production and effects studios.

"My goal is really to be surrounded by qualified, amazing people from the industry really selling, you know, giving a good pitch about all what Montreal has to offer. I'm really confident. We have it all, it's just about making sure that people know about it."

In recent years, a number of major Hollywood films have been shot in Montreal, including X-Men: Dark Phoenix, On the Basis of Sex (the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic), and Amazon's Jack Ryan limited series.

Montreal's post-production industry is also booming, topping off this year with an Academy Award win for Framestore, a company based in Montreal's Mile End that worked on Blade Runner.

The province offers a 20 per cent tax credit on all film production expenses, and up to 36 per cent for special effects and animation. 

Competing with Vancouver

The province attracted $400 million-worth of foreign production last year, according to the Canadian Media Producers Association. 

According to City Hall, when you add up the cinema, television and after effects industries, Montreal generates about $650 million a year.

But that's massively eclipsed by the $2.3 billion of production in British Columbia.

Part of that is due to Vancouver's proximity to L.A., said Christian Lemay of the local branch of the International Cinematographers Guild.

But, he says, there are other things that the city of Montreal can do to make itself more attractive to U.S. studios, like making it easier to get permits to shoot in sought-after locations like the Old Port.

"Some of them are not easy — Old Montreal for example. And we can understand that, because our industry is working 24 hours, 7 days a week and sometimes for the residents there's an impact. But it's something important I think for the economy of Montreal," he said.

With files from CBC's Ainslie MacLellan and La Presse Canadienne.