The latest movie to film in Greenwich has a story that hits close to home.
Actor David Duchovny was in town Tuesday to film scenes for a movie that is based on the true story of a Greenwich family whose mission is to build a world-class children's hospital after the death of their daughter.
The film, "After the Fall," will also be shooting for the next couple of weeks in the basement of the town-owned Nathaniel Witherell nursing home on Parsonage Road.
The nursing home's director, Allen Brown, said "After the Fall" is based on the story of Maria Fareri, a 13-year-old Greenwich girl who died of rabies in 1995. Her parents, Brenda and John Fareri, after observing that hospitals weren't geared toward families and their children, went on to help found the Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical Center in New York.
Brown said the nursing home has been approached by location scouts before, but have had to turn down requests to turn the facility into a movie set because they would have to clear residents out of their rooms during the shoot.
For "After the Fall," producers were looking for a space that was old, and apparently found what they were looking for in the abandoned basement, which was once used by Greenwich Adult Day Care.
"They liked the way it looked because it gave them the opportunity to simulate the very negative environment that the pediatric hospital offered before they built the new hospital," Brown said.
For the past week, the crew has been setting up for the shoots, which are scheduled for Wednesday, Friday and most of next week. Brown said there haven't been any issues.
"I think it's fair to say that nobody knows they're there," Brown said.
There was an extra flurry of activity Tuesday in the shopping center on East Putnam Avenue that houses Whole Foods Market, where filming for "After the Fall" took place at Hunan Gourmet, a Chinese restaurant at the end of the strip.
A producer on set referred comment to the movie's publicist, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday. According to the Internet Movie Database, the film is slated for release in 2013.
Carole Belfiore, a receptionist at the Carlo and Company Salon next door said the production had just set up when she got in at 8:30 a.m. She said someone from the production stopped by with Starbucks coffee and asked that the salon workers let them know if the shoot caused any problems.
A bearded Duchovny, dressed in a blue button-down shirt, could be seen standing by the entrance to the restaurant, which was packed with lights and other production equipment. It's not clear what role he plays in the movie.
Belfiore, a fan of Duchovny's most recent TV series, Showtime's "Californication," worked up the nerve in the afternoon to approach the actor and ask him to pose with her for a photo.
"He was really cool, took a nice picture and that was it," Belfiore said.
Scenes were also supposed to be filmed Tuesday in a bathroom at the YMCA of Greenwich -- the bathroom was to stand in as a hospital bathroom -- but the Y's chief operating officer, Edward Philipp, said the shoot there was canceled because they had found another location.
"We hit the cutting room floor before we ever made it on film," Philipp said.
Philipp said that the "X Files" actor was in the building Tuesday while he waited to go on set.
Coincidentally, an episode from the first season of "The X-Files," the long-running science-fiction show that made Duchovny famous, was set in Greenwich.
TV and film productions have become a common sight in Greenwich, with "The Big C," also on Showtime, filming in bars and stores around town. Last year, "The Big Wedding," a movie starring Robert De Niro and Katherine Heigl and directed by Greenwich native Justin Zackham, filmed at Gabriele's Italian Steakhouse and two town churches.
Michael Long, director of environmental services for the town Department of Health, which handles filming applications, said "The Big C," which stars Laura Linney as a woman battling cancer, will be back in town this week to shoot scenes for its fourth, and final, season. The production will be at the Eastern Greenwich Civic Center on Harding Road in Old Greenwich on Thursday.
lisa.chamoff@scni.com; 203-625-4439; http://twitter.com/lchamoff
Read more: http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Duchovny-in-Greenwich-for-very-local-movie-shoot-3953858.php#ixzz29WHQcaQT
Post a Comment