SUDBURY -- After spending years living south of the border, a Sudbury-based filmmaker is back and is working hard to show off his northern roots.

Mathieu Seguin just completed his studies at the American Film Institute, living in Los Angeles for the past three years. As the calendar began getting closer to his return back home, he started making plans to use his new skills as a way to show off Sudbury, a town he is proud to be from.

"When you are away for awhile you tend to appreciate things a lot more because you see it in a different perspective and I think that's definitely what happened to me," Seguin recalls.

"If you look at my past videos, I'm like a billboard for Sudbury. All of my shots are always featuring Sudbury. So I was always proud of Sudbury but I definitely saw it as a much different thing coming back now."

Seguin safely managed to return to his northern roots in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic. While much of his previous work had a heavy focus on the landscape and scenery northern Ontario is known for, given the current pandemic he wanted to take a different angle.

In this latest video, entitled Sudbury Thrives, Seguin decided to use the people that make up the city to convey the story that he wanted to tell.

"Right now I thought it was more fitting to focus on people and not only people but business owners in Sudbury, at work," said Seguin.

"So, I decided to go about and highlight five local businesses that are not only operational in Sudbury but they have adapted, they're pivoting and they're also thriving in this economy."

Those businesses included a music studio, an environmental group and a mining business amongst others. He said that he thinks Sudbury's significance is often underappreciated.

"I created the video Sudbury Thrives to really make people proud of where they come from and to instill a sense of pride in coming from the north and coming from Sudbury," Seguin proudly boasted.

"Sudbury is a city in action and I think we kind of overlook a lot of things but Sudbury's an international city and it's always moving."

After years of studying his passion and earning a masters degree, he felt this was the perfect tribute to the city he is so proud to call home.

"I thought the community was in need of a good, positive message to start with," said Seguin.

"But also, I just wanted to give back to the community and the best way I know how is with images and that’s where I went to school to do and get my masters, so I might as well put my craft in practice."

If you want to see the video for yourself, you can click here.