Local filmmaker Robert Bellamy delved into his past in writing his latest work, which has been featured on Bell’s Fibe TV and is literally coming soon to a theatre near you…if you live in Chatham.
To be fair, “A Long Ride Home” actually aired this past weekend at the Cineplex in Chatham, but it was a private showing.
Bellamy – who, along with Kristina Garant, runs JX3 Media, a Chatham-based film production company – said he channelled pieces of his past to help shape the work of fiction that is A Long Ride Home.
The film – that Fibe TV had made into a series – tells the story of Mick Gale, who grew up in the biker lifestyle, but left home as a teenager due to having an abusive father. But Gale gets a call, telling him his father, the vice-president of the motorcycle club Demons of Aries, was killed in jail.
The story revolves around Gale coming home to help his mother, and to confront his “Demons.”
Bellamy said the concept evolved out of personal experience, to some extent.
“When I was writing it, I tapped into a lot of stuff I grew up with. There are some elements of my life in there. But it’s not autobiographical,” he said. “Some people in my family were into that biker element. Some parts of my history is what I drew on.”
Bellamy described A Long Ride Home as “definitely a drama. There are a couple of dark spots. I think it is a story of self-discovery, and that not everything you see is what is real. When Mick left home, he was 16, and he didn’t look back for 20 years. When he finally goes back, it’s a lot of discovery.”
Bellamy said about 80 per cent of the film was shot in Chatham and Chatham-Kent. He said it’s a great location to shoot.
“We pretty much film everything in Chatham-Kent. It’s where we live,” he said, adding the diversity of the communities and the landscapes is appealing. “From the villages like Erieau or the cityscape of Chatham, or the plain fields, it offers a lot.”
Most of the cast and crew is also from the Chatham area.
Bellamy said the biker gang in the film is fictional, as are the characters. Well, all but one. Ed Hooft plays police officer Rob Herder, named after the longtime Chatham-Kent police constable, who passed away in 2020.
His wife, Mary Ellen Herder, plays Betty Jane Gale in the movie.
The JX3 team has been filming in and around Chatham for various projects since 2012 and got to know Rob Herder.
“This is our tribute to him. While we were filming, his wife, Mary Ellen, was our special effects person and she’s also in this movie. He would bring her everywhere,” Bellamy said.
A Long Ride launched on Fibe TV in late February and Bell had the rights exclusively for three months.
In that time, Bellamy returned the piece to its movie format and prepared to show it locally.
It is slated to air at a red carpet event at the Chatham Capitol Theatre on July 18. There is an afterparty at Sons of Kent, where the band The Long Lots, who did most of the music for the movie, will be performing.
