The Testaments Is Filming Around Oakville Again

The trailers and the long white tent taking up the upper parking lot at Oakville Place are not there for a festival. They belong to a television crew. The Testaments, the spinoff of The Handmaid's Tale, has come back to Oakville to shoot scenes for the series.

Crew vehicles and equipment have turned up around the mall and on residential streets near Lakeside Park in recent days, and several locals have reported filming down by the waterfront. Oakville Place is the base for the production's vehicles and equipment, which is why the upper lot looks the way it does.

The town already has a place in the show's invented world. During earlier production, the historic Chelster Hall was turned into an elite school for girls in Gilead, the fictional setting both series share. The Testaments and The Handmaid's Tale both come from Margaret Atwood novels, and the original won Emmys.

Oakville's streets, waterfront and heritage properties are what keep drawing productions here. Town staff have said shoots of this size bring "economic activity and employment to the community", and the town's film office handles the permits, the locations and the neighbourhood questions that come with a crew parked on your street.