Still from ‘Fido’, filmed in Kelowna
Twenty years after cast and crew turned an ordinary Kelowna street into an idealized 1950s suburb, the zombie comedy Fido returns to the city that played its backdrop.
The screening takes place Monday, September 21 at 7:30 PM at the Rotary Centre for the Arts (421 Cawston Avenue), as part of Kelownafornia: Moviescapes of the BC Interior, an eight-night series exploring how the Okanagan has spent more than a century standing in for practically everywhere but itself.
About the film
Fido (2007), directed by Andrew Currie and starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Billy Connolly, and Dylan Baker, imagines a candy-colored 1950s suburb where the dead have been domesticated into household servants. When a lonely boy’s family acquires a zombie of their own, his bond with “Fido” puts a deranged spin on Norman Rockwell’s America. Rated 14A.
Much of the film was shot right here in Kelowna. According to Okanagan Film Commissioner Sara Shaak, speaking to local media as filming began, Maple Street underwent a full cosmetic transformation — fresh paint and period detailing on homes up and down the block — to pass for small-town 1950s America. Roughly 75 percent of the film was shot within Kelowna city limits.
Organizer Dr Greg Garrard says: “Fido is a sly satire on suburban normality that makes great use of Kelowna’s most charming historic neighbourhood.”
About Kelownafornia
For over a century, filmmakers have looked at the Okanagan and seen somewhere else: Ice Age Europe, the Wild West, suburban America, the mountains of Central Italy. This fall, Kelownafornia: Moviescapes of the BC Interior brings home eight films — indie, Canadian, and big-budget Hollywood — to celebrate the landscape hiding in plain sight behind every place it’s ever played.
“In recent years, my students and I have been studying how the Canadian Okanagan came to be so beloved,” says Dr Garrard. “This movie festival celebrates an art form that has represented, and misrepresented, this landscape.”
Tickets and details
- When: Monday, September 21, 2026, 7:30 PM
- Where: Mary Irwin Theatre, Rotary Centre for the Arts, 421 Cawston Avenue, Kelowna
- Tickets: $20 regular / $10 student & senior — available online