The 40-acre Willingdon Lands development is planned to introduce 5,200 new housing units to Burnaby — but also in the works is also a film academy to train Indigenous people from across Canada.
It will be a place for Indigenous people to create careers for themselves in the film industry, in front of the camera or behind it, said Johnna Sparrow-Crawford, Aboriginal relations advisor at Aquilini Development, who is from Musqueam.
Leaders of the Indigenous-owned project, jointly led by Musqueam Indian Band, Tsleil-Waututh Nation and Aquilini Development, spoke at a fireside chat on Oct. 1, hosted by the Sustainable Production Forum.
About half of the Willingdon Lands site (21 acres) will be used for a film studio, including 15 stages.
“We are going to be threaded throughout every stitch of that development,” said Sparrow-Crawford.
In total, the site, located at 3405 Willingdon Ave., will incorporate about 450,000 square feet of film and TV production studio space.
The studio brings the number of full-time on-site jobs to 3,050, with an estimated contribution of $360 million to B.C.’s GDP when the studio is fully operational, according to the site’s master plan.
The film studio will anchor the site’s storytelling district which lies as the south of the Willingdon Lands.
“It’s going to be one of the biggest game-changers, I think, for our people as storytellers to finally find a place for themselves,” said Sparrow-Crawford.
Sparrow-Crawford’s daughter, Faith Sparrow-Crawford, film producer and co-founder of HOST Consulting, added: “We’ve got thousands of years of stories just waiting to be put on screen.”
