Written by Tara Garcia

A filmed documentary in Saskatchewan is receiving world-wide critical acclaim as it has been selected as a monthly winner in the Cannes World Film Festival.

Wild Prairie Man was filmed by local company Overtime Studios and focuses on the life of a man enthralled with the exotic and endangered lands of Grasslands National Park.

The subject of the film, photographer James Page provides details on how the documentary came to be.

"Well, the documentary was George's brainchild, George Tsougrianis. And it started out as a modest proposal, would I be interested in spending some time with him in and around the park filming and seeing what we could make of it."

As the director, Tsougrianis speaks about his motivation behind the making of the piece.

"You know going into the project I didn't have a clear focus of exactly what it was. I knew we wanted to focus on the park and showcase the park through a number of different viewpoints. For example landscape, the wildlife, even the light down there is kind of unique and kind of its own interesting topic."

Tousgrianis and his company had done a project back in 2018 about Grasslands as part of the Great South West series that was done with a number of stakeholders in the south west. It was during this project that he first had the opportunity to work with Page who was hired as a consultant on the project. It was in early 2021 that Tousgrianis came up with the idea to pitch the idea of doing a full documentary on Grasslands. With the success of the 2018 documentary plus prior to the pandemic having spent more time in the park and running across people from all over the world, Tousgrianis felt as though it was a good local story that could translate to a much larger audience. 

Page and Tousgrianis went down to Grasslands in June and spent a month shooting down there and as they spent more time together it became apparent to Tousgrianis that what the documentary was, was a point of view and it was Page's perspective that would serve as the centerpiece for the documentary. 

At the age of 12, Page asked his parents for a camera for Christmas and has now been doing photography for close to 60 years. According to Page, with anything one is passionate about motivation can change over time. He went from documenting his hometown in Quebec to photographing sports and eventually the wilderness. Page began publishing his photos in magazines, calendars and books and served as the photo columnist for Explore magazine for twelve years along with teaching at the Western Academy of Photography in Victoria BC. 

Page published a book called Wild Prairie which was a combination of his first visits to the Prairies in 1999/2000 where he became captivated by what it had to offer. With regard to the Prairies, Page says they are often overlooked by most people who don't always see their amazing graphic landscape and incredible wildlife. 

Reflecting on Grasslands, Page says that it is untouched natural prairie which there is very little of in North America. He enjoys the extreme graphic quality of the landscape and says that the prairie light is special and he finds a special clarity there that he doesn't always find in other places. 

According to Page, landscape photography is about relating the foreground to the background and finding that relationship. In Grasslands because the spaces are so vast and the need to deal with distances between things can be a challenge. 

Speaking about their time working together on the documentary, Page says that Tousgrianis is a really good storyteller, as he also is but in a different way. Page says that he can bring back a story from every outing while Tousgrianis is good at piecing together a series of short stories into a longer coherent form and Page adds that he had no idea that is what he was going to do with the film. In fact, Page says he had no idea that he would be the subject of the documentary until they started shooting. 

In regards to the motivation behind the film, Page says that letting the world into the Grasslands was a big part of it. He says that he is thrilled to show people how great this part of the province is, however, he also doesn't want a lot of people coming down to Grasslands as to many people will spoil it. He adds that luckily Grasslands is off the beaten path and not really a highway stop where people randomly pull over and spend half a day. He says it is much more of a destination where people have to make an effort to get there. It is that he believes, that will save it from vast hoards of people trampling over the land. 

From a personal perspective, Page says the documentary serves as a showcase for his work and thoughts about the wild prairie so he's happy about that. He also adds that he is not overly ego involved as he says it would not matter to him whether or not he was the subject of the film. 

Page stresses that all recognition and credit should go to Tousgrianis as it is his film, but Page is happy to tag along and be a part of it. He says the documentary was a labor of love from the start and although he's really pleased that it's getting some notice that is not the reason that he did the project. 

After completing the documentary in January of this year the idea was to submit it to various film festivals. Reflecting on this Tousgrianis adds that you never know what reaction you will get. You put it together and hope it will find an audience, in essence, you let it go and hope it finds its way. 

A couple of weeks ago they were notified that the documentary was selected as a semi-finalist and have now received word that it has been selected as a monthly winner at the Cannes Film Festival for Best Nature/Wildlife Film. As a monthly winner, it has been automatically entered in the Annual Competition for a chance to become a Grand Winner and the opportunity to be screened in Cannes during the Annual Awards Ceremony in 2023.

According to Tousgrianis, as an independent filmmaker, you are only as good as your last project and he says that he has been fortunate to have had the level of support that he has had from Swift Current and the south west in terms of all the projects the company has been able to push forward over the many years it has been in business. 

Tousgrianis points out that right now there is a huge creative boom happening. When looking at what streaming services are doing and the level of production happening in Canada as an independent producer he says there are still so many opportunities to tell some great stories that will translate so much and all of that does require investment which he says is not only from the government perspective. He says that in 2021 the top streaming companies spent over two hundred and fifty billion dollars creating original programming. 

Reflecting on Grasslands, Tousgrianis says it really is undiscovered country. He adds that the park is all about the mixed prairie grasslands and the only way to experience that is to get out of the car and walk. This is one thing he says they really tried to reflect in the film and is a big part of Page's philosophy. He adds that you need to walk it to experience the landscape and if you make that investment, you won't be disappointed.