Golden Lake part 2

We just got back from a three day shoot in Golden Lake. Tommy, Jake, Claire and Florence were amazing hosts. Special thanks to Dawn Wark for the cabin and Lucy Manning for joining the team to do some translating and interviewing. Here’s a few iPhone pics from the trip.

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Golden Lake Ontario

We’re back!

Rob and I recently traveled to Golden Lake Ontario by way of Fallbrook Ontario where we found the Golden Lake Chinese Restaurant. We were welcomed by owners Tommy Tsui and Jack Wong and loved our experience of both Golden Lake and the Golden Lake Chinese Restaurant. We plan on revisiting the restaurant in the next few months with ambitions to learn more about the uniqueness of the Golden Lake Chinese Restaurant.

Golden Lake Chinese Restaurant

Morris

Chelmsford, Ontario

After speaking with members of the Chew and Feng families (past owners of a restaurant in Chelmsford, near Sudbury), we decided to head north and get a firsthand look at the community. The current owners of Chew’s Restaurant on Errington Street kindly allowed us to film the restaurant’s interior, and we spent the rest of our three days exploring the town and surrounding landscape, which everywhere bears the signs of the mining industry, the dominant economic force in the Sudbury Basin. Morris also shot some 4×5 images with his view camera.

On set at Chew’s Restaurant

On set at the Chew’s Restaurant in Chelmsford Ontario near Sudbury.

February 17, 2010.

Photographs by Robert Lendrum

Heading to Chelmsford Ontario….

Mark, Robert and I will be heading up to Chelmsford Ontario from February 15 to the 17. Road trip super exciting.

Morris

One in Every Town

Anyone who has driven through a small town in Ontario  can testify to the proliferation of Chinese restaurants across the province. It seems there is one in every town, and its not a new phenomenon. Going back to the 1950s or earlier, Chinese restaurants have sprung up in even the tiniest hamlets and been the economic base of rural Chinese-Canadian families. In a way, they are a fixture, even an institution, of the Canadian small town landscape. Our documentary seeks to find out how they got there. What brought Chinese families to these small Ontario towns? How did they get started? And how do they maintain their own culture when they are so far from a larger Chinese community?

Takeout Film Productions is the collaborative team of Morris Lum, Mark Laurie and Robert Lendrum. Together, we are working on this short documentary film that explores the importance of the Chinese-Canadian restaurant as an institution in the small towns and rural communities of Ontario.

We are actively looking for subjects for our film One in Every Town (working title). We are seeking personal stories from people who own or work in a Chinese restaurant in any small town in Ontario.

If you or someone you know is the owner or employee at a Chinese restaurant in a small town in Ontario and would be interested in participating in our film, please contact us at takeout.filmproductions@gmail.com