Arrival is a 2016 science fiction drama from stars Amy Adams as Louise Banks, a professor of linguistics who joins the US Army after 12 huge, mysterious spaceships land in different places around the world.
She leads a group of brilliant minds and top investigators in a race against time to find a way to talk to the aliens who have come to Earth, even as tensions between the countries lead to war.
With high hopes, Louise takes a risky chance to solve a mystery that could endanger not only her life but the lives of everyone on Earth.
Aside from Amy Adams, talented actors like Jeremy Renner, Michael Stuhlbarg, Forest Whitaker, and Tzi Ma give great performances in the Denis Villeneuve-directed film, given the background of the Montana meadow where one of the 12 egg-shaped spaceships lands and the interior of the spaceship where Louise tries to talk to the aliens, viewers are likely to scratch their heads and wonder where Arrival was actually filmed.
Arrival Filming Locations
The movie “Arrival” was shot in and around Montreal, Bas-Saint-Laurent, and L’Île-Cadieux in Quebec. Reports say that the main filming for the Amy Adams movie began in June 2015 and ended in early August of the same year, after about 56 days of filming.
Interior Scenes: Montreal
Most of the interior scenes, including the one inside the alien spaceship, are said to have been filmed at MELS Studios. The film studio has 20 sound stages with all the equipment needed to make any kind of movie or TV show. This makes it a good place to film a variety of movies and shows. For the inside of the alien spaceship, the production team built a 150-foot tunnel with an interview room.
The hospital scenes were shot in East Montreal at the Hôpital Santa Cabrini, as well as many other scenes of dialogue in offices and hallways that took place at the Place des Arts.
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L’Île-Cadieux, Canada
In the Quebec region of Montérégie, more “Arrival” was recorded in the village and municipality of L’Île-Cadieux. Scenes from Banks’ home and neighborhood were filmed on the property at 35 Chemin de l’Île in L’Île-Cadieux and in the nearby areas. The small, remote village is a good place to film a science fiction movie like ‘Arrival.’
Montreal, Canada
A big part of ‘Arrival’ was shot in Montreal, which is a major hub for art, culture, music, aerospace, film and TV, finance, education, and more. The important scenes at the university where Louise teaches were filmed at the Université de Montréal campus at 2900 Edouard Montpetit Boulevard in Montreal.
The University Plaza was the Place de la Laurentienne, and the HEC Montréal and Garage Louis-Colin buildings were used as the University Parkade.
Bas-Saint-Laurent, Canada
Some of the most important scenes for the movie Arrival were filmed in the administrative part of Bas-Saint-Laurent, which is on the south side of the lower Saint Lawrence River in Quebec.
In particular, the parish municipality of Saint-Fabien in the area was used to stand in for the Montana meadow where the aliens land their huge egg-shaped spaceship in the movie. Fun fact: It took the film crew nine weeks to turn the place into a military camp in Montana.
Wrapping Things Up
Thanks to the magic of cinema, Arrival makes you think that the movie took place in the United States when it was actually shot in a bustling metropolitan district and other regions of Montreal, Canada.
That region’s government fosters cinematographic work, thereby giving tax exemptions to the production companies by guaranteeing that they employ local workers, which in turn boosts their economy, and with the quality of the arts and film schools there, the place is ideal for making movies like Arrival, a cerebral science fiction thriller that gives different vibes on what an actual alien spaceship invasion looks like.
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