Gerald Saul films
Wheat Soup
16mm film, 75 minutes, black and white, 1987 (additional images 1, 2, 3, 4)
Co-Producer/Writer/Director/Editor (with Brian Stockton)
This film began out of a conversation bemoaning the lack of interesting locations to shoot in around Regina. We suddenly realized that the prairie with its lack of detail was unique and very interesting. Combined with that, we had used our long time friend Shaf in one shot of a super-8 film a couple of years before and when we watched the film we realized that he had great screen presence. The idea of a Mad Max-like wheat farmer story came quickly. Set on the prairies of the future, it follows Sam, the last remaining wheat farmer, fighting off wheat poachers, and questing to find the purpose of life. We decided to ignore everyone's advice and make a feature film rather than starting with a short film. We began shooting in the summer of 1985 and finished in the fall of 1986. It is Regina's first locally produced feature length dramatic film. MORE PHOTOS
Trivia: this the first of our films to be released being labeled as a "Depressionist" film.
Original storyboards. Original screenplay (incomplete pages). Production notes. Some jokes.
Referred to by filmmaker/writer/teacher Greg Klymkiw as a "genuine Gen-X feature".
In 2017, The Bushwakker Brewing Company created a Wheat Soup beer to commemorate the Saskatchewan Filmpool 40th anniversary. IMAGES.
Behind the scenes film - sound/colour super-8 on day of final shot, October 1986 shooting the sunset.
At the world premiere in October 1987, we played a new 16mm introduction film. The sound played at the time has been lost but included in this version is "Happy Days" by the Pop Squad which featured lead singer Szymon Choynowski who shot the city street footage used in the title sequence of Wheat Soup. This intro film was played publicly one other time, 25 years later, with this Pop Squad music.
On July 4, 2018, on the Regina community radio station CJTR on a program about movies called "Spoiler Alert" the title "Wheat Soup" was selected by host Geremy Lague in a quiz which required his co-hosts Sean Dunham and Sonia Stanger to make up a story about what this film might be about (having not seen it previously). Here is the clip.
In 2022, Zellco Entertainment began distrubuting Wheat Soup. It can now be viewed on TUBI.
2023 Youtube discussion of Wheat Soup by Patrick Lowe of Ubus Films discusses this film as a lost treasure of the 80s. This is a promotional film for our distributor Zelco Entertainment, but Lowe's discussion is written by him and is from the heart.