“The Bricklayer”: CIA Headquarters Thessaloniki City Hall for the filming needs

Outside the industrial building design of town hall of Thessaloniki Dozens of supporting actors with a physique and appearance reminiscent of multifaceted America have taken seats in the small outdoor amphitheater of the building complex to finish their scheduled lunch break. In their uniform black suits, their conservative appearance in their haircuts and hairstyles, they look like standard agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of USA. Shortly before, they had lined up in the predetermined positions of the offices of the City Hall of Thessaloniki in order to record interior scenes from some offices of the City Hall, which for the needs of the film, had been turned into offices of CIA.

Two floors above, in an inner corridor that normally leads to the office of the mayor of the city a “busy” day with another group conservatively dressed employees of CIA recorded by the cameras with instructions of director. The auxiliary “extras” actors who participate in the scene talk about their supposed collaborations as soon as they receive an order: “Rolling, backround… action!” will be heard from the production and the scenes will be repeated on corridors of town hall of Thessaloniki again and again. There, where on normal days, deputy mayors, associates of the municipality will come and go in the offices to handle the affairs of the citizens.

Although he himself Bricklayerthe actor Aaron Eckhart his co-star was not found on Saturday at the town hall Nina Dobrev participated in scenes. Outside the buildings, a beehive of collaborators collaborates, adds and removes temporary decorative elements to the town hall backdrop-CIA headquarters, carries accessories for digital cameras as well as lights, the main “component” of an audiovisual production. At the time of the break, large cranes with giant lights have arrived at the back of the building complex and are waiting after Saturday’s shooting at the town hall of the city. Thessaloniki was scheduled to include night shots.

City Hall and city center for Sunday

The morning of Sunday the outside of the town hall remains one huge film headquarters mainly with trucks with equipment, since the special caravans of the protagonists and the cast are located a few hundred meters away, but the action has been transferred for a few hours to the city center. THE Tsimiski Street and the Ionos Dragoumi until two in the afternoon it is flooded with of American origin and SUV specifications cars, patrol carsbig classic sedans, sports, exotic muscle car, all with USA signsvehicles that we will rarely see normally on the roads of Greece.

The reason for the partial “transformation” of its main road Thessaloniki-transformation that includes even the use of tobacco machineswhich simulate the humidity that usually comes out of the ventilation of subway lines in big cities-, is done because the protagonist of the film The Bricklayerplayed by Aaron Eckhart, must appear to be circulating in an urban environment with a metro network. The actor with the appearance of a partially “paid” agent and a headset in his ear is looking for, according to the script, the one “… who blackmails the CIA, killing foreign journalists, making it seem that the Service is responsible” and the Tsimiski Street of Thessaloniki is in the foreground.

“The Bricklayer” is set to premiere in the fall of 2023. It is a spy thriller based on a novel by author Noah Boyd – he was a former experienced FBI agent – set in Berlin and adapted for filming in Thessaloniki. Directed by Renny Harlin, the screenplay is written by Hanna Weg and Matt Johnson and, according to the schedule so far, it will be shot mainly in Thessaloniki, in the studios of Millennium Media in Thermi, but also in nearby areas up to the middle April.

In total shootingit is estimated from the production that they are proceeding normally, something that excited him as well Finnish director who, early on Sunday morning, conveyed his enthusiasm on social media as, as he explained, “… the shooting of” The Bricklayer “is going on all weekend” while at the same time he stressed that “I feel blessed, inspired and grateful” that he works with “… the best cast and the best team that a director could ask for” in Thessaloniki.

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