Outside Davin, Sask., an 1870s western boom-town sprang up from the prairie dust in mid-October. Not just a few houses and stable fronts, either. We’re talking a full-fledged community with a blacksmith shop, corral, graveyard, a boarding house, a choice of three saloons and a brothel among the amenities on the four-acre lot.

But the western town has its origins across the ocean around the table of director Jon Sanders and his wife Anna Mottram.

‘We dreamed up the little street back in London,’ says Sanders of the set for the $4 million Canada/ u.k. coproduction Prairie Doves. ‘It was extraordinary to see it made real in the Prairies.’

In fact, the script for the feature was hashed out around that same table. Sanders and Mottram spent two years cowriting the screenplay, after receiving a £5,000 loan from British Screen.

The question that begs to be asked: what was it like working with your partner?

‘Quite tricky, at first,’ laughs Sanders. ‘The rules of the game are different from living together to writing together.’

Prairie Doves, which shot Oct. 21 to Nov. 23 in Saskatchewan, is a western, but not of the typical cowboy and Indian type. Sanders is dubbing it a ‘serious women’s film’ as it tells the individual stories of six women who turn to prostitution as their only means of survival.

‘There are thousands of films about the prostitutes of the west ­ gaudy girls in petticoats and garters having a good time,’ he says. ‘But there’s another story. Hundreds of thousands of young women came west and there was no work for them. It was all men’s work. So they ended up working on their backs.’

The inspiration for this western written by an Englishman actually came from a Japanese film, Street of Shame which uses a similar five-story structure to detail the lives of women in a Tokyo brothel.

So how d’es a guy in London who has never directed a feature and never had a screenplay developed end up directing an international coproduction that brings together the likes of Ann Scott of London’s Greenpoint Films, Christina Jennings of Toronto-based Shaftesbury Films (both coproducers of Swann) and Stephen Onda of Regina’s Heartland Motion Pictures?

British Screen’s offer to put up one-third of the funding was the initial lucky break. The bbc followed with some cash. Sanders then showed the script to Scott.

‘She loved it. It was easy to love because I already had the promise of half the money,’ he laughs.

But Scott and Sanders knew the money well was dry in the u.k., so Scott contacted her Swann coproducer in Toronto to come on board.

Scouting potential locations, they were awed by the Saskatchewan badlands. ‘The prairies for an English person is extremely exotic and beautiful,’ Sanders says. ‘We don’t get those huge skies, incredible wind, the huge expanse of valleys and canyons.’

Dollar signs clinched the location. Saskatchewan Opportunities Corporation and Saskfilm offered some cash if they brought on a local producer, and Telefilm Canada came through with funding. Onda was shown the script and jumped at the chance to make the move into feature production. His eight-year-old company had only tv and documentary projects to its credit.

‘I have always wanted to do a feature, but in Saskatchewan, tv is a market that’s easier to produce and finance in,’ says Onda, who hints he has a couple of other features in development. ‘Prairie Doves is well timed. I hope this signals our move into small features.’

Not only is the production international, but the cast is just as eclectic. The six women cast in leading roles span the globe: American Kelly McGillis (The Accused), from the u.k. Brenda Fricker ( Swann) and Mottram (Through The Night), Meret Becker (The Promise) of Germany, Bronagh Gallagher (Pulp Fiction) hailing from Dublin, and Canadian Lisa Jakub (Mrs. Doubtfire).

A few of the young local actors were a bit daunted by all the leading ladies.

‘There’s a scene in the bordello with Kelly on top of a supposedly young and aggressive cowboy,’ explains Onda. ‘But the young Saskatchewan actor was a little intimidated, and finally in frustration she turns to him and says, ‘Have you never done this before?’ ‘No,’ he replies, ‘I’ve never done this before.’

‘It was decided he wouldn’t be a rough-and-ready cowboy, he would be a meek and mild farmboy.’

Otherwise, Onda is amazed at how well the largely Saskatchewan-based ensemble cast and crew (of the 39 leading roles, 28 were filled by local talent and 89 of the 112 crew members were from the province) bonded with the leading ladies.

A musical bent helped. With McGillis singing, and Gallagher, Becker and local cast and crew on instruments, a Prairie Doves band has taken flight and recorded their tracks. Their first gig ­ the production wrap party ­ was deemed a hit.

Sanders is heading off to London now to edit. The western set has been donated to Saskfilm to encourage future location shoots in the province.

Cinepix Film Properties is distributing. Release is slated for fall ’97.