Written by new-contact on Apr 29, 2014. Posted in On Location

Period drama The Book of Negroes films in South Africa and Nova Scotia

New period miniseries The Book of Negroes is filming on location in South Africa and Nova Scotia in eastern Canada. Based on a novel by Lawrence Hill, the miniseries follows a young girl sold into slavery and taken to the US in the mid-18th Century, who must find her way to freedom.

Conquering Lion Pictures has already doubled South Africa for Mali in the drama. Louisbourg in the Cape Breton region of Nova Scotia will stand in for late-18th Century New York, TC Media reports. Filming has been taking place at the Fortress of Louisbourg, which offers a reconstructed 18th Century French fortified town.

Nova Scotia has doubled for US locations before. Last year the province stood in for Connecticut for a TV movie based on the life of Lizzie Borden, who was famously acquitted of the axe-murder of her parents in 1892.

“Two of the episodes centre around the American Revolutionary War, a lot of which – the influence and some of the battles even – took place in New York State and New York City so Fort Louisbourg is stepping in for Lower Manhattan these days,” Damon D'Oliveira, executive producer told the outlet.

“We've got a hundred-plus extras, most of whom come from the local community. We've brought up a crew of probably more than a hundred people from Halifax and then we've got some of our co-production partners from South Africa – I believe there's roughly ten of them that are coming over here – so quite a motley crew of international people and a bunch of us from Toronto as well.”

We've got a hundred-plus extras, most of whom come from the local community. We've brought up a crew of probably more than a hundred people from Halifax.

Damon D'Oliveira, Executive Producer

The production will also be filming on location further south in the Nova Scotia towns of Halifax and Shelburne. By the end of the shoot the miniseries will have filmed in fourteen different cities across two continents.

While Conquering Lion Pictures’ miniseries is based on a fictional story, the Book of Negroes was in fact a real 18th Century document which registered African American slaves who made it to the British lines during the American Revolution.

(Photo: Chris Reardon)