Halifax provides perfect backdrop to new film Wait for Me Showing at town's Square Chapel this week

The producer is Calder Valley-based Thea Burrows who kept a blog about the making of the film – a drama about a woman called Alison who is desperate to escape her life of crime.

Here’s what Thea had to say about why she chose Halifax as the movie’s main location.

“When Wait For Me director Keith handed me the script in January 2020 and said he envisaged it being shot in either Halifax or Huddersfield I jumped at the chance of filming my first feature film in my own backyard.

“I’ve always thought it would make a great cinematic setting. Of course, it’s about the way it looks but also the emotions it stirs, the cultural history it evokes and the welcoming, film-friendly attitude.

“According to The Guardian, the area has been renamed Haliwood, following filming with Tom Cruise, Shane Meadows and Samuel L Jackson with shows like Gentleman Jack, Happy Valley and upcoming Marvel show Secret Invasion putting it on the map.

“While reading the script, I was already starting to think about potential areas and eager to show the creative team that Halifax had (nearly) everything we needed to tell our story.

"In lockdown we did an initial recce to introduce the valley to the director and co-producer. We wanted to establish a setting of desolate beauty – the hills as powerful backdrops but with high rise flats towering up out of green valleys.

“The great thing about filming where you live is that you always have your location radar on. On a school run, I spotted a perfect caravan for Ged’s home. We ended up shooting the exteriors at an alpaca farm I pass regularly on my morning jogs and moved the caravan to the Jute Shed at Dean Clough to do the interiors. Our production office was at the fantastic Dean Clough Mills.

“The world that our villain Max operates in is a dark and violent underworld. Women are brought over in transit vans or containers and sold into organisations like Max’s where their passports are taken away and are imprisoned while Max profits from selling them for sex.

“Taking inspiration from Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, we transformed a building for sale on Huddersfield Road into a squalid and basic den with touches of cheap frills for the punters and a suitably dodgy office for Max.

“Sam’s flat was part of a group of flats about to be knocked down so we were able to make a donation to a housing charity in return for being able to film. The launch of the very helpful Film Calderdale made permits and access run smoothly.

“One thing Halifax doesn’t have is a beach and it was integral to the story that the story is given room to breathe. Cleethorpes won.

“The other great thing about shooting in Yorkshire is that you can access support from Screen Yorkshire. The Beyond Brontes scheme meant we were able to give eight local trainees from underrepresented backgrounds their first experiences on a professional set.”