Vancouver: Buena Vista Home Entertainment, a division of Walt Disney, has augmented its scheduled video release of Summer of Monkeys this month with a limited theatrical release in the u.s. The family feature – produced by Saskatoon’s Edge Entertainment and shot in Saskatoon and Calgary – has opened on screens in Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas and New Mexico.

Successful festival screenings have added to the interest in the film, says executive producer David Doerksen, president of Edge.

The film – based on the novel by Wilson Rawls about a poor farm boy who tries to capture a troupe of escaped circus monkeys and collect the reward to buy a pony – won the Crystal Heart Award in the children’s category at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis in October.

The video will also be distributed by Buena Vista in the u.k., New Zealand and Australia. Sullivan Entertainment will release the video in Canada.