Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The City of Buffalo is in the cinematic spotlight on Tuesday following the release of nominations for the 94th Academy Awards in late March.
The film "Nightmare Alley", which was partly filmed in Buffalo, earned a total of four nominations for an Oscar, including bids for Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, and also Best Picture.
"Well it's really good news for the Buffalo, Western New York film community," said Buffalo Niagara Film Commissioner Tim Clark of the accolades garnered for the film on Tuesday. "It really is a great postcard for Buffalo, I think. What this also does is it reminds everybody out there in Hollywood and beyond that Buffalo has so many great period sites that are available for shooting."
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"Nightmare Alley", starring actors such as Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett, is set back in the 1940s and features some key Buffalo landmarks like City Hall, Niagara Square and Karpeles Museum. It is some of Buffalo's historic architecture that has film creators looking at the city as a destination to produce a movie.
"We hear from producers and directors all the time that Buffalo is truly cinematic gold. It's got so much history here," Clark said. "In so many other cities, they rip this stuff down and put parking lots or big box stores in its place. We've preserved so much here, and our architectural assets are really second-to-none in America, and I'd even say probably the world."
One of those people that speak highly of Buffalo is the director of "Nightmare Alley", Guillermo del Toro. Not only does del Toro speak highly of the city's cultural and culinary scene, he if fond of what Buffalo has to offer.
"It's basically a sampler of every style of architecture in the 20th century," del Toro said during an interview back in December. "You want to set it in the 1900s, in the 1800s even, 19th century; you want Deco, you want classical architecture from the 1940s. You get everything, and it's effortless to make a period picture there."
"Guillermo is really truly a fan of Buffalo," Clark said of the Academy Award winning director. "He's been here since the movie shot. He comes back and slips in and out of town every once in a while, and I think he's fascinated by all the architectural gems that he sees here, as well as the ease of movement. So I presume he'll be back again.
"I've talked to Guillermo since even the premiere, and we've talked about potential other projects here. He has such a beautiful eye for, sort of, artful and important architecture, and he sees that just exploding here in Western New York."
In terms of other projects going forward for the Buffalo Niagara Film Commission, Clark believes that with this recognition from "Nightmare Alley", Hollywood will take more notice of Buffalo as a potential destination for future movie production.
"There are other cities that have an old train station or a beautiful art Deco building like City Hall, or they have these individual things. But rarely do you find them all in one particular city," Clark said. "That's one good thing that we really espouse to all of Hollywood is that we have it all here, and it's all within minutes of each other."
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This year's Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, March 27 at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles and will be televised live on ABC.
