Trevor Lewington, Ismail Okasha, and Nick Bohle promote the new organization, Screen Lethbridge. (Photo: Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Screen Lethbridge to promote city as key filmmaking destination

Sep 17, 2025 | 1:15 PM

If The Last of Us is anything to go by, communities like Lethbridge could see a major economic boost from film and TV projects.

That is why the City of Lethbridge and Economic Development Lethbridge have teamed up to launch Screen Lethbridge.

Ismail Okasha, Film Services Support at the City of Lethbridge, says he eventually wants to attract major blockbusters.

“Starting, honestly, I think it’s a major focus to encourage local filmmakers to start making their own projects,” says Okasha. “I think Lethbridge thrives with its culture and its arts, and there’s a lot of conversations with the University of Lethbridge as well to encourage students and local filmmakers to start. That way, we at least have a basis and something these bigger productions can see.”

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Okasha explains that he has spent his first several months in the role compiling a database of all locations in and around the city that would likely be of interest to filmmakers.

Nick Bohle, owner of Lethbridge-based Hat Chat Productions, says, from a landscape perspective, the coulees and High Level Bridge are the key standouts that all directors should want to include in their projects. He adds that these are truly unique natural features that few places have.

He also shouted out the modern architecture of the Agri-food Hub & Trade Centre, the stylistic beauty of the Nikka Yuko Japanese Gardens, and even the Lethbridge Airport, which he says can be edited to portray a bigger or smaller airport.

Bohle says one of the biggest advantages of filming in Lethbridge is that, in his most recent production, it took as little as 15 minutes to move from location to location, while the same work in a bigger centre might take hours. Especially on bigger projects where a lot of people are involved, this could represent sizable savings.

Trevor Lewington, CEO of Economic Development Lethbridge, says a smaller city like Lethbridge could more easily provide a “concierge service” to location scouts, where they could take them on a tour of the city and provide a more personal touch.

Lewington adds that Alberta’s Film and Television Tax Credit has played a major role in attracting larger and smaller film projects to the province by making filming cheaper.

Screen Lethbridge not only serves as a promotional tool for attracting filmmakers, but the group is also trying to make it as easy as possible to get approved for filming.

Okasha says they have created a new application process that is specific to filmmaking, adding that the previous system was for “large events” in general, and that it involved a lot of extra paperwork.

There have been a handful of notable productions in southern Alberta in recent years, including season one of The Last of Us. A post-apocalyptic version of Lethbridge’s High Level Bridge was shown in episode four.

The Motion Picture Association of Canada says HBO spent $141 million in Alberta, and the total economic impact was over $182 million.

An action sequence in 2019’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife was shot in Fort Macleod, bringing over 200 crew members and thousands of spectators to the town.

Others in the region include Billy the Kid, The Abandons, and Brokeback Mountain.

READ MORE: HBO spent $141 million filming ‘The Last of Us’ in Alberta: report

READ MORE: Ghostbusters production a major economic boost for Fort Macleod