'Lost Girls,' Netflix movie on Gilgo murders, filming on LI's East End
Amy Ryan, left, will play Mari Gilbert in the Netflix movie "Lost Girls." Credit: Composite photo: Getty Images / Frazer Harrison, left, Patrick E. McCarthy
Kenney's Beach in Southold becomes Gilgo Beach and the community of Oak Beach in the Netflix movie "Lost Girls," currently filming in several East End locales.
Based on Robert Kolker's book about the unsolved murders, in which the remains of 10 victims — mostly women, some of them prostitutes, but also a man and a toddler — were discovered at Gilgo Beach and nearby beginning December 2010, the drama set up production at Kenney's on Friday. Shooting began Monday, according to the filming permit.
Production in the area is scheduled to continue through Nov. 9, at locales including Leeton Drive and Kenneys Road near Kenney's Beach, as well as at the Mattituck Motel in Mattituck.
"They wanted a quiet location with accessibility," one of the motel owners, who asked not to be named, told Newsday. "They just approached me — they'd sent a [location] scout, like usual for these kinds of things." The motel's name will be changed and a machine will produce fog during the scheduled Nov. 6-9 shoot there.
Town of Southold Supervisor Scott Russell said of the shoot around Kenney’s Beach, "The police chief originally had some concerns about the manpower required and the roads that need to be closed. But he worked it out with the producers and came up with a schedule they thought was workable."
Two-time Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus directs the story that follows Mari Gilbert (played in the production by "The Office" actress Amy Ryan), who reported in May 2010 that her daughter, 24-year-old prostitute Shannan Gilbert, was missing. The first four Gilgo Beach murder victims, found that December, also were sex workers, prompting the theory that Shannan might have died at the hands of the same apparent serial killer(s). But after her body was found a year later in a nearby marsh, investigators eventually concluded that she had drowned or otherwise died accidentally. Mari Gilbert continued to seek justice for Shannan until she was stabbed to death in July 2016 by her younger daughter, Sarra Gilbert.
Produced by the New York City-based company Archer Gray and Burbank, California-based Langley Park Pictures, "Lost Girls" also stars Gabriel Byrne, Dean Winters, Miriam Shor, Kevin Corrigan, Rosal Colon and others. Netflix has announced no release date. Anne Carey, one of the producers, did not return a Newsday call for comment.
