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MIT gives OK for ‘Patriots Day’ filming
By Mark Shanahan
Globe Staff

Director Peter Berg, who’s set to start work on “Patriots Day,’’ the movie about the Boston Marathon bombings, has been given the go-ahead by MIT to film scenes on campus. In an e-mail Thursday addressed to the MIT community, Israel Ruiz, the school’s executive VP and treasurer, said Berg has been given permission to film “entirely peaceful scenes’’ involving MIT police officer Sean Collier, who was killed by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the brothers responsible for the bombings. “The film will include Sean as a character and will tell his story as a member of our community,’’ Ruiz wrote. “Mr. Berg has asked for MIT’s permission to film on our campus entirely peaceful scenes of Sean driving to campus, walking to a room, and talking to graduate students. In consultation with President [L. Rafael] Reif, our Chief of Police John DiFava, and the Collier Family, we have decided to permit Mr. Berg to film the scenes here. We feel it appropriate that Sean’s depiction take place not at a facsimile of MIT, but rather here, where he was proud to serve, and where he is loved. We and Mr. Berg agree that the scene depicting Sean’s murder will not be filmed at MIT.’’ Ruiz said the filming likely will take place over three days in June. Notices also went up around Dorchester Thursday alerting residents that there will be filming on Belfort Street on Wednesday. Producers of “Patriots Day’’ have encountered some pushback. In Watertown, where police waged a gun battle with the Tsarnaevs, at least a few residents opposed a plan to re-create the nighttime firefight there. And the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a student, said filming on campus would be “too disruptive.’’ The cast of “Patriots Day’’ includes Mark Wahlberg as a Boston police officer, John Goodman as former Police Commissioner Ed Davis, and J.K. Simmons as Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese of the Watertown Police Department.