Megan Folden

Lucas Frison (Prairie Cat Productions) was a successful grant recipient of our Showcase or Sell Travel Grant to attend the Banff World Media Festival.

The Banff World Media Festival is expensive to attend, but a lot of magic happens there. Lucas Frison of Prairie Cat Productions knew he had to attend.

Frison started his Canadian Screen Award-nominated production company, Prairie Cat Productions, shortly after graduating from the University of Regina in 2014. With a number of successful projects under his belt, he wanted to attend the Banff World Media Festival in 2023 to pitch the script for his feature-length coming-of-age film, One Perfect Date.

With the help of a Creative Saskatchewan Showcase or Sell Travel Grant, he was able to do just that.

“The festival was a fantastic experience and exposed me to a wide variety of industry professionals and decision-makers I would not have otherwise had the opportunity to meet,” Frison says. “The pitches for One Perfect Date went great. I left the week with a lot of new contacts and opportunities.”

Frison left Banff with contacts that helped him land a distributor – Filmoption International – for his feature film. And with that distributor lined up, One Perfect Date was selected for funding through Telefilm’s Production Program.

“This was something we’d been working towards and dreaming about for over a year,” Frison says. “To get that email, we were ecstatic.”

Frison expects to be filming his million-dollar film right here in Saskatchewan in the near future. When looking back at the process and how it all came together, Frison notes that it all started with funding from Creative Saskatchewan. “We wouldn’t have had this opportunity if it weren’t for the support from Creative Saskatchewan,” he says. “It really puts Sask filmmakers and artists on equal grounds with those from the rest of the country.”

Going into 2020, Moniquea Marion was working on an unscripted travel web series called Fuel Up. The six-part series saw her travel Canada’s west coast on a motorcycle alone looking for food, beautiful riding, and adventure.

Then the pandemic happened.

Marion planned to expand Fuel Up into an actual 30 to 60-minute-long travel series, but the pandemic changed everything. Though she had some great producers excited about the project, the pandemic had a major effect on the market. “Travel shows just weren’t happening during, or coming out of the pandemic,” she says.

Undiscouraged by the state of the market, and busy with several other projects, Marion has continued to work on Fuel Up in the background over the past few years. When the chance to work on the project as part of an exciting new program arose, she jumped at the opportunity.

Marion was selected as one of six participants in the Whistler Film Festival 23 Saskatchewan Market Accelerator, a new, unique program funded by Creative Saskatchewan in partnership with the Whistler Film Festival. The program is an intensive multi-phase project development program designed to accelerate the careers of Saskatchewan-based producers while developing original narrative or factual projects, like Fuel Up.

Her experience in Whistler has helped Marion move Fuel Up closer to production. She met a lot of great people during her time in Whistler, including producers from Europe and India there who are very excited about the project. “Taking the show out of the Canadian landscape, where it’s too risky right now, and transitioning it to somewhere like India might make it work,” she says. “I learned how important it is to be flexible on whatever project you’re working on to see if become as successful as possible.”

In addition to Fuel Up, Marion is also working on comedy, drama series, children’s, and a couple of unscripted series. Undoubtedly, her time in Whistler has helped push her and her projects forward. “I’m really grateful for all the opportunities Creative Saskatchewan has made available to me,” she says. “Creative Saskatchewan really is in your corner.”