Ballarat residents will have the opportunity to be extras in a major movie being partly filmed in Ballarat between 11-16 January 2020.
'Road to Boston' is the uplifting true story of athlete Suh Yun-bok, who won the Boston Marathon in 1947, becoming the first Korean to win an international sporting event following the country's independence from Japanese colonialism in 1945.
Hopewell International Productions will conduct and Open casting call for the scenes to be filmed in Ballarat on Wednesday, December 18 at the Ballarat Mining Exchange, Lydiard Street north from 3pm- 7pm.
The company is seeking loads of extras for the crowd scenes and will looking to Ballarat's sporting and running groups to cast individuals who can realistically portray runners who participated in the 1947 event.
The start of the iconic Boston Marathon race will be recreated near the Ballarat airport, while some of the marathon sequences will be filmed at locations including Lydiard Street, Bakery Hill and Victoria Park.
Ballarat Mayor, Cr Ben Taylor said the film would provide a substantial economic boost to the City as well as putting Ballarat on the map as a filming destination.
"It's very hard to put a figure on the financial and other benefits that this sort of exposure creates for our City," he said.
This ambitious project scouted for locations in several countries around the world and chose key locations within Victoria to film the marathon sequences, due to the preserved period streetscapes of cities like Ballarat and Bendigo.
The City of Ballarat's Events team has worked closely with the film and television location managers to secure the most appropriate locations within the municipality for a story set in the 1940s.
Residents, stakeholders and businesses will receive notification about the proposed filming activities.
