Year: 1976
Language: English
Format: 16mm Colour
Runtime: 57 min
Director: Tony Ianzelo, Torben Schioler
Producer: William Brind
Executive Producer: Colin Low
Cinematographer: Tony Ianzelo
Editor: Torben Schioler
Sound: Hans Oomes, Michel Descombes, Don Douglas
Music: Don Douglas
Production Company: National Film Board of Canada

This film follows the Royal Brothers’ Circus, the only surviving Canadian tent circus, during its 1976 summer season. Directors Torben Schioler and Tony Ianzelo document a twenty-four-hour period in the lives of the performers, observing not only the people but also the mechanics behind a circus in transit. Like the circus itself, the film hovers between comedy, sentimentality and the grotesque. High Grass Circus received an Academy Award® nomination for Documentary Feature.

(N.B. A nine-minute abridged version of the film, titled Little Big Top, was also released.)