Guided by a young female director, this debut feature showcases isolation, art, and politics in the rarely depicted Maritimes region. Set in the sparsely populated fishing villages of South Nova Scotia, Plains puts the spotlight on an alternative lifestyle on the fringes of Canada's tech expansion.

In the summer of 2019, Romanne Walker took a trip from Toronto to a remote fishing town in the Canadian Maritime province of Nova Scotia. She brought in her bag a camera, audio recorder, and fellow filmmaker, Eli Speigel to document a slice of the curious lives of Jonathan Carroll and Cat Bluemke. 



Jon and Cat are a young couple who are developing virtual reality video games and a new politically left-leaning MMORPG called Peasant Sim.

Against the busy backdrop of Jon and Cat's treatment of ideas on labour and the new concept of "techno-feudalism" in their art, we sit in on their quiet rural life, which, in its proximity to nature and the vast green and oceanic spaces that surround, echoes the romanticism of a simpler time. 

We were granted access to a rare instance of virtual reality development and experimentation taking place in within the idyllic environment of Canada's rural east coast. 



This project is an experiment in docufiction, combining observational cinema with scripted scenes. We follow our subjects into the philosophical rationale of their work, but have also fabricated a larger over-arching narrative about the place where reality and virtual reality meet.

The decaying world of physical labour and the mechanical industry faces up to an expanding digital empire and our film thinks about the effect this has on feelings of togetherness and solitude, creativity and labour, and the paradox of using technology as an attempt to grasp a freer and more accurate version of reality.



We had anticipated getting enough footage for a short film, but once we returned, we realized we had enough to make a feature-length film! With the film increasing dramatically in size, the cost of finishing the project did the same. The cost of colour grading and audio mastering (necessary if this is to play in theatres and film festivals) has ballooned into $6,000. 

Being a two person team with a feature length film makes securing funds very difficult, as most grants do not apply to projects for post-production only, and being an international crew makes getting government grants in any one country even harder. After being rejected for funding by the Toronto and Ontario arts councils, and ineligible for many more British grants, we are now seeking the necessary funds to finish the film via independent pledges... hence why you're here!

Finally, we all know that COVID-19 has had considerable repercussions on the entertainment industry. COVID has made things a little slower for us, by splitting up our team, and thereby slowing down our post-production process. This has not stopped us however, and we continue to work safely and responsibly as we emerge from what we hope will remain the worst of this health crisis for our respective nations.

Beyond this, we would like to acknowledge that the recent civil uprisings in the US and across the world had our team stopped in its tracks to question the role of our filmmaking in its political context, and our civic duties regarding the movement as independent artists, but also as an all white cast and crew. 

After taking some time to pause our work to both reflect and activate in this critical historical moment, we now feel prepared to continue our project by launching this campaign while still continuing our personal political activities supporting the new global civil rights and anti-oppression movement.

Plains was filmed in the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People, which is covered by the "Treaties of Peace and Friendship" which Mi’kmaq Wəlastəkwiyik (Maliseet), and Passamaquoddy Peoples signed with the British Crown in 1725. The treaties did not deal with surrender of lands and resources but in fact recognized Mi’kmaq and Wəlastəkwiyik (Maliseet) title and established the rules for what was to be an ongoing relationship between nations. The Mi’kmaq People are the original settlers of modern day Nova Scotia, which is now also home to the many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples of Turtle Island.

We also would like to mention the ongoing oppressive treatment of the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island by the Canadian governement and call upon any Canadian citizen reading this text to thoroughly examine our immense privilege as settlers on Canadian territory.