culture
Where Natasha Was Filmed in the GTA
We hope you like biking in the suburbs to a Canadian indie pop soundtrack.
Toronto’s extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn’t always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city.
It’s always a bit special when an actual, Canadian-made, set-in-Toronto film comes across our path, but Natasha is unique in several respects.
Firstly, it’s based on the eponymous short story from David Bezmozgis’s 2004 anthology, which garnered international acclaim. Even then, Bezmozgis was also making films and he returns here, both as writer and director. We’ve also profiled his Victoria Day, similarly a coming of age story set in North York. Though both movies are geographically set in the Russian “arrival city” centred around Bathurst and Steeles, and Natasha has the unique quality of featuring dialogue that’s nearly entirely Russian.
The prime location in the book’s stories is the apartment building at 6000 Bathurst Street. Though the actual building isn’t used here, we do stay in the general neighbourhood.
The apartment in which Natasha and her mother reside when they come to Canada is just a few blocks away, on Cedarcroft Boulevard.
And when they arrive in Canada…
…it’s actually at Pearson Airport. Most of the time, movie productions shoot a convention centre or somewhere else as the airport but they got the real deal here.
The main character, Mark (played by Alex Ozerov, who you may recognize as the drug dealing Ramon from Orphan Black) lives within biking distance of the apartment…
…just off Bathurst, north of Steeles…
…up in Thornhill.
He also bikes to see his drug-dealing pal, Rufus.
But his exurban McMansion isn’t actually within biking distance. It’s way up in King City, but still near Bathurst Street! (Those brown mailboxes are a dead giveaway we’re in the 905 and not the 416, eh.)
One thing that is like Victoria Day (and like most teenage suburban lives) is that there’s a lot of biking around the leafy suburban streets while Canadian indie pop plays on the soundtrack. Indeed, it’s arguably Bezmozgis’s primary visual motif.
It’s hard to identify every background but we see more of the neighbourhood around Natasha’s apartment.
…when Mark goes around distributing his drugs.
There’s also a sequence when Mark and Natasha get out and about and visit the Art Gallery of Ontario.
And that’s about it, location-wise. geographically, it’s a fairly insular film but then that’s part of the point of the thing. Natasha has played the festival circuit, and like most domestic films, had a quiet domestic run, but you should be able to find it out there soon enough.