The Sun Valley Film Festival unveiled its film lineup and will honor Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood with its inaugural Lifetime Vision Award at the 4th annual Festival, March 4-March 8, 2015.
The SVFF Lifetime Vision Award pays tribute to an individual who has provided the keen insight, influence and initiative to fulfill a creative vision. In addition to the special presentation to Mr. Eastwood, the 2015 Sun Valley Film Festival has added a 5th day of signature programming including Coffee Talks with Bruce Dern and Bill Paxton. More than 60-curated films will screen followed by filmmakers Q&A sessions.
The following is a featured selection of the 2015 SVFF films. The film slate can be viewed here.
NARRATIVE
The Barber * SPECIAL SNEAK PEEK SCREENING
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Basel Owies
Writer: Max Enscoe
Producer: Travis Knox
Cast: Scott Glenn, Chris Coy, Stephen Tobolowsky, Kristen Hager
The life of a small town’s beloved barber is turned upside down by the arrival of a mysterious stranger. Eugene Van Wingerdt has been a pillar of this community for years but no one in this small town knows that he may be hiding a deadly secret. John LaRue has been hunting for a serial killer who, thanks to a lack of evidence, was released from custody only to disappear. Convinced that Van Wingerdt is the guy, LaRue has arrived in his small town not to expose him instead he wants to learn how to kill. Only the best can teach him how to get away with it.
U.S.A./92 min
Cut Bank
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Matt Shakman
Writer: Roberto Patino
Producers: Mickey Barold, Dan Cohen, Mark Manuel, Ted O’Neal, Laura Rister, Edward Zwick
Cast: Liam Hemsworth, Teresa Palmer, Bruce Dern, Billy Bob Thornton, John Malkovich, Oliver Platt
Dwayne McLaren (Liam Hemsworth) dreams about escaping small town life in Cut Bank, Montana, “the coldest spot in the nation,” with his vivacious girlfriend Cassandra (Teresa Palmer). When Dwayne witnesses an awful crime, he tries to leverage a bad situation into a scheme to get rich quickly but he finds that fate and an unruly accomplice are working against him. Thrust into the middle of a police investigation spearheaded by the local sheriff (John Malkovich), everything goes from bad to worse in this all-American thriller. Directed by Matt Shakman and also starring Billy Bob Thornton, Bruce Dern, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Oliver Platt.
U.S.A./93 min
Felix and Meira
Director: Maxime Giroux
Writers: Maxime Giroux, Alexandre Laferrière
Producers: Sylvain Corbeil, Nancy Grant
Cast: Martin Dubreuil, Hadas Yaron, Luzer Twersky
Félix and Meira is a calling card for its young director, Maxime Giroux; a story of an unconventional romance between two people living vastly different realities mere blocks away from one another. Each lost in their everyday lives, Meira(Hadas Yaron), a Hasidic Jewish wife and mother and Félix (Martin Dubreuil), a Secular loner mourning the recent death of his estranged father, unexpectedly meet in a local bakery in Montreal’s Mile End district. What starts as an innocent friendship becomes more serious as the two wayward strangers find comfort in one another. As Felix opens Meira’s eyes to the world outside of her tight-knit Orthodox community, her desire for change becomes harder for her to ignore, ultimately forcing her to choose: remain in the life that she knows or give it all up to be with Félix. Giroux’s film is a poignant and touching tale of self-discovery set against the backdrops of Montreal, Brooklyn, and Venice, Italy.
Canada/105 min
French/English/Yiddish
Imperial Dreams
Director: Malik Vitthal
Writers: Malik Vitthal, Ismet Prcic
Producers: Katherine Fairfax Wright, Jonathan Schwartz, Andrea Sperling
Cast: John Boyega, Glenn Plummer, De’aundre Bonds
A 21-year-old reformed gangster’s devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles. Once back, Bambi must choose between honoring his commitment to his young son, and yielding to temptation with the local gang’s promises of easy seed money to jump-start their enterprise. As he grapples to build a future, Bambi begins a dangerous dance with the gangster life he has been so committed to escaping.
U.S.A./87 min
IS THIS THE REAL WORLD
Writer/Director: Martin McKenna
Producer: Deborah Barlow
Cast: Sean Keenan, Susie Porter, Greg Stone, Charlotte Best
With an eye for beautiful details in the everyday, this stunning film is an intimate and profoundly moving vision of family, teen love, rebellion, and the consequences of being afraid to grow up. Living in a coastal town in Australia, 17-year-old Mark is a smart kid from a chaotic family. He has thrown away a scholarship to a private school and found himself at the local public high school, where he butts heads with an overbearing principal. At home, Mark is dealing with a jail-bound brother, a sickly grandmother, and an alcoholic mother. When Mark finds his first real love, he sees an opportunity to escape all the competing forces in his life. Told through the fragmented and heightened senses of a boy on the cusp of manhood, this is a dreamy story about what it means to be alone and how valuable it is to feel connected.
Australia/91 min.
It’s Us **Work in Progress screening**
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Writer/Director: Colin Thompson
Producers: Colin Thompson, Jon Dishotsky
Cast: Colin Thompson, Eliza Coupe, Jay Hayden, Andrew Friedman, Annabelle Gurwitch
A volatile young couple moves from Los Angeles to Vermont to try and save their marriage. Both work in the entertainment world; he a talent agent, she in costume design, and have decided to point the finger at the city and business in which they work instead of looking in the marital mirror. Vermont provides some respite, but at the end of the day, wherever they choose to live, they are who they are.
This is a movie about love and marriage and the dark spaces that can be born in between.
U.S.A./100 min
National Geographic Channel’s Killing Jesus * WORLD PREMIERE
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Cast: Haaz Sleiman, Stephen Moyer, Rufus Sewell, Emmanuelle Chriqui, John Rhys-Davies, Eoin Macken, and Kelsey Grammer
It’s a story nearly the whole world knows, with more than 2.2 billion people around the globe following the teachings and principles of Jesus of Nazareth. But the intimate historical details of his life and the political collusions that led to his brutal demise bring new context to the familiar story. Produced by Scott Free Productions and based on the New York Times best-selling book by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, Killing Jesus dives deep inside the historical story of a man whose message and preachings led to his persecution and execution by a group of conspirators who saw him as a threat to their power.
Morocco, U.S.A./135 min
Land of Leopold * WORLD PREMIERE
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Akis Konstantakopoulos
Writers: Christopher Pinkalla, Drake Shannon
Producers: Matthew Helderman, Joe Aliberti
Cast: Ray Wise, Christopher Pinkalla, Drake Shannon, Scottie Thompson
Leopold Rawlins is a troubled drifter suffering from a bad past and worse present. Living in and out of prison and out on the streets, Leopold winds up being deemed insane by the state and sent to the Milton Way House. Searching for redemption, Leopold uncovers new unlikely friends and an adventure that tests his limits.
U.S.A./81 min
THE MIDNIGHT SWIM
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Writer/Director: Sarah Adina Smith
Producers: Mary Pat Bentel, Jonako Donley
Cast: Lindsay Burdge, Jennifer Lafleur, Aleksa Palladino, Ross Partridge, Beth Grant
Spirit Lake is unusually deep. No diver has ever managed to find the bottom, though many have tried. When Dr. Amelia Brooks disappears during a deep-water dive, her three daughters travel home to settle her affairs. They find themselves unable to let go of their mother and become drawn into the mysteries of the lake.
U.S.A./88 min.
Slow West
Writer/Director: John Maclean
Producers: Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Conor McCaughan, Rachel Gardner
Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Ben Mendelsohn, Caren Pistorius, Rory McCann
Set at the end of the 19th Century, SLOW WEST follows the story of sixteen-year-old Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as he journeys across the American Frontier in search of the woman he loves and accompanied by a mysterious traveller named Silas (Michael Fassbender).
U.K., New Zealand/84 min.
SOLD
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Jeffrey Brown
Writers: Joseph Kwong, Jeffrey Brown
Producer: Jane Charles
Executive Producer: Emma Thompson
Cast: Gillian Anderson, David Arquette, Seema Biswas, Susmita Mukherjee, Niyar Saikia
SOLD is a narrative, feature film adaptation of the globally acclaimed novel by Patricia McCormick.
Based on true stories, SOLD, is the story of Lakshmi, a thirteen year old, trafficked from a pastoral, rural village in Nepal to a gritty brothel/prison in Kolkata, India.
Through one extraordinary girl’s journey, SOLD illustrates the brutality of child trafficking, which affects millions of children globally every year.
SOLD is a call to action, and a testament to the power and resilience of the human spirit.
India/95 min.
Up The River *WORLD PREMIERE
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Writer/Director: Ben Greenblatt
Producers: Nick Shore, Brendan McHugh
Cast: Lindsay Burdge, Will Brill, Adam David Thompson, Nathalie Love
On a weekend trip to the Hudson Valley, Rebecca finds herself in between places. Traveling with her fiancé Thomas, and their friends Willy and Laura, Rebecca is anxious about transitioning from being a student to a professional and is torn between lust and love. As the trip unfolds, she struggles through emotional uncertainty, doubtful of her relationship with Thomas and intrigued by his best friend Willy’s bold advances. Nerves are pushed, wills broken, secrets exposed and relationships tested. Thomas and Rebecca may never recover from this weekend.
U.S.A./76 min.
X/Y
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Writer/Director: Ryan Piers Williams
Producers: Jason Michael Berman, Kwesi Collisson, America Ferrera, Ryan Piers Williams
Cast: America Ferrera, Melonie Diaz, Ryan Piers Williams, Jon Paul Phillips, Common, Dree Hemingway
A look at the lives and interactions of a group of friends living in New York.
U.S.A./82 min
Zero Point * WORLD PREMIERE
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Co-Creators: Gregory Bayne, Christian Lybrook
Director: Gregory Bayne
Writers: Gregory Bayne, Christian Lybrook
Cast: Lisa King Hawkes, Vince Morales, Nora Thornton, Aaron Kiefer, Ben Chappel
When children begin dying mysteriously, Dr. Alex Embry, driven by a hidden tragedy, becomes obsessed with finding the cause. What begins as a small, regional investigation soon expands into a global race to find the source of a growing epidemic that threatens to wipe out an entire generation.
A sci-fi detective series set against the backdrop of increased shale oil exploration, the global proliferation of GMOs, and growing effects of climate change, ZERO POINT unfolds the story of human colony collapse through those who have survived the wreckage of their own lives only to confront a world dying off from the wrong end.
U.S.A./47 min.
* IDAHO SERIES PILOT
DOCUMENTARY
#ChicagoGirl – The Social Network Takes on a Dictator
Writer/Director: Joe Piscatella
Producers: Joe Piscatella, Mark Rinehart
From the Chicago suburbs an American teenage girl helps coordinate the Syrian revolution. With social media, she helps her network expose regime atrocities. But as the violence rages everyone in her network must choose the best way to fight a dictator: Facebook or AK-47s.
U.S.A., Syria/74 min.
English/Arabic
vAdd the Words
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Directors: Michael D. Gough, Cammie Pavesic
Producers: Michael D. Gough, Cammie Pavesic
Executive Producers: Eugene Boyle, Gary Winterholler, Sean Small
Since 2006 the LGBT community and human rights supporters have asked Idaho lawmakers to add the words sexual orientation and gender identity to the Idaho Human Rights Act. It is still lawful in this state to fire someone or refuse services or housing because of how they identify. For 8 years they were told, “we can’t this year because of the political climate. Be patient, and we will get to it next year.” With their left hands covering their mouths to symbolize how Idaho legislators have worked to silence them, they have begun an effective civil disobedience campaign.
U.S.A./79 min.
* IDAHO FILM
Ann Sothern: The Sharpest Girl in Town **Work in Progress Screening**
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director/Producer: Mike Kaplan
Starring: Ann Sothern
Featuring: Robert Osborne, Malcolm McDowell, Loretta Young, Gavin Lambert, Aljean Harmetz, Annie Ross
ANN SOTHERN is often called the most under-appreciated star of the movies’ Golden Age – a brilliant comedienne (KID MILLIONS, BROTHER ORCHID), a compelling dramatic actress (A LETTER TO THREE WIVES, THE WHALES OF AUGUST) and a first-rate musical performer (LADY BE GOOD, PANAMA HATTIE). Lucille Ball, her long-time friend and frequent co-star, called her “the best comedienne in the business.” Baby boomers know her two hit television series—PRIVATE SECRETARY and THE ANN SOTHERN SHOW (1953-1961) – in which she created TV’s first independent, working woman. This segment of THE SHARPEST GIRL IN TOWN, a work-in-progress documentary about Sothern, focuses on the creation, history and contributions to the cultural phenomenon that was “Maisie,” the street-smart, working-class show girl who became the movie’s first modern feminist and made Sothern a superstar.
U.S.A./54 min
Dog Days of Winter
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Brian Gilmore
Executive Producer: Gene Gilmore
Producers: Caleb Young, Stanley Larsen
“Dog Days Of Winter” is a retrospective on the start up of organized freestyle skiing during the early 1970’s in America. Told from the point of view of some of the most influential pioneers of the sport, “Dog Days” tells the story of key people and events that set the stage for the birth of the sport, the spirit that freestyle is rooted in, factors that took the “free” out of freestyle and reflections on what has become of the sport today.
U.S.A./65 min
* IDAHO FILM
The Empowerment Project
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director/Producer: Sarah Moshman
Producer: Dana Michelle Cook
Documentary Shooter: Vanessa Crocini
The Empowerment Project: Ordinary Women Doing Extraordinary Things is the incredible journey of 5 female filmmakers driving across America to encourage, empower, and inspire the next generation of strong women to go after their career ambitions.
Driving over 7,000 miles from Los Angeles to New York over the course of 30 days, the documentary spotlights 17 positive and powerful women leaders across a variety of lifestyles and industries.
Created for women by women, they challenge the audience to ask themselves, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid to fail?”
U.S.A./99 min
Far From Home
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Galen Knowles
Producer: Phil Hessler
Director of Photography: Galen Knowles
Sometimes the most beautiful forms of life can thrive in the most unfavorable conditions. At the age of two, his mother left the family in Uganda and reappeared nine years later, arranging Brolin’s emigration to the United States to join her in Boston’s suburbia. Brolin’s transition into American society was disheartening. Facing bullying and depression, Brolin saw little hope for the future. He was twelve when he saw snow for the first time, and as unlikely as it sounds, he found sanctuary in the snowboarding community on the icy slopes of Massachusetts. The film tells Brolin’s story from being raised in Uganda to rallying the support of an entire nation in his goal to make history in the 2018 Olympics as the first snowboarder to represent an African country.
U.S.A., Uganda/73 min.
Finders Keepers
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Directors: Clay Tweel, Bryan Carberry
Producers: Ed Cunningham, Seth Gordon, Adam Gibbs, Bryan Carberry
Shannon Whisnant has a nose for a bargain. But when he bought a used grill at a North Carolina auction, the severed human foot he found among its ashes was not part of the deal. Soon the gruesome discovery becomes the toast of the infotainment world, and the new owner spies a golden opportunity to cash in on the media frenzy, until struggling addict and amputee John Wood recognizes his missing member and demands his own foot back. It is the stuff of documentary legend.
U.S.A./82 min
Free to Rock **Work in Progress Screening**
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Jim Brown
Producers: Nick Binkley, Jim Brown, Doug Yeager
Narrated by: Kiefer Sutherland
Free to Rock is a documentary film directed by 4-time Emmy winning filmmaker Jim Brown and narrated by Kiefer Sutherland. Rock & Roll spread like a virus across the Soviet Union despite Communist attempts to outlaw it. Thousands of underground bands and millions of young fans who yearned for Western freedoms helped fuel the nonviolent implosion of the Soviet regime. Free to Rock features Presidents, diplomats, spies and rock stars from the West and the Soviet Union who reveal how rock and roll music was a contributing factor in ending the Cold War.
U.S.A., Russia/61 min
Gardeners of Eden
Directors: Austin Peck, Anneliese Vandenberg
Producers: Austin Peck, Anneliese Vandenberg
Production Company: RYOT Films
Africa’s elephants are hurtling towards extinction to fuel the worldwide ivory trade. While conservationists howl and corrupt governments fail to address the ongoing slaughter, one brave family has been working for decades to stem the tide, one elephant at a time. Gardeners of Eden is a gripping, first-person experience inside the operations of Kenya’s David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. From the frontlines of the crisis, we witness their heroic efforts to stop the poachers in the bush, rescue the orphans of slain elephants and raise them by hand, until one day, returning them to their home in the wild.
Kenya/62 min
Gaucho del Norte
Directors: Sofian Khan, Andres Caballero
Producers: Sofian Khan, Andres Caballero
“Gaucho del Norte” tells the story of a Patagonian sheepherder recruited to work in Idaho. The nomadic two-year journey follows Eraldo Pacheco and his herd of more than a thousand sheep across a lonely, rugged landscape — from the harsh beauty of wintry high desert, to the lush summer mountains. Living in isolation, Eraldo faces the ups and downs of a psychologically demanding job far away from his home and family.
Patagonia, U.S.A./58 min.
* IDAHO FILM
Girl From God’s Country * WORLD PREMIERE
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Writer/Director/Producer: Karen Day
Executive Producers: C.K. Haun, Karen Meyer, Eileen Barber, Arlene Vidor, Tracey Goessel, Boise State University, Idaho Film Collections, Peppershock Studios
A documentary about Nell Shipman, Idaho’s first female independent filmmaker and animal-actor advocate. In 1921, Shipman refused a studio contract with Sam Goldfish (not yet Goldwyn) and moved to Priest Lake with a zoo of 70 wild animals to write, direct, act and produce films that portray women as self-reliant heroines in the wilderness. Shipman performed her own stunts and offered the first nude scene in film history. Her uncanny rapport with her wild animal actors earned her fame in her most successful film, THE GIRL FROM GOD’S COUNTRY. This documentary reveals the forgotten legacy of Shipman and an entire generation of female silent film pioneers from around the world. Rare footage from these early filmmakers, including Zora Neale Hurston, prove these women deserve the recognition they’ve never received. Geena Davis and Hollywood’s Director of Women in Film discuss how the gender-inequities Nell and her counterparts faced perpetuate in today’s media industry. If you want to influence how women’s capabilities are perceived by future generations—don’t miss the world premiere of GIRL FROM GOD’S COUNTRY.
U.S.A./63 min.
* IDAHO FILM
National Geographic Channel’s Hubble’s Cosmic Journey * WORLD PREMIERE
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Executive Producer: Ben Bowie
Producer/Director: Christopher Riley
Narrator: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Hubble’s Cosmic Journey is a celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope’s 25 years orbiting our planet. Narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Hubble’s Cosmic Journey is the story of one of the most remarkable advances in modern technology, as told by the people who designed, built, launched, operated and repaired the legendary observatory.
U.S.A./48 min
IDBDR – Idaho Backcountry Discovery Route
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Sterling Noren
Featuring: Jon Beck, Justin Bradshaw, Paul Guillien, Tom Myers, Rob Watt, Bill Whitacre, Sterling Noren
The IDBDR documentary provides an in-depth look into the creation and first expedition of the IDBDR, a scenic ride across the state of Idaho, beginning in Jarbidge, NV and finishing at the Canadian border. The route has been created specifically for dual-sport and adventure motorcyclists who are interested in exploring Idaho’s remote backcountry. This 1,300-mile south-to-north route utilizes mainly dirt roads and leads riders across mountain ranges to isolated lookout towers, natural hot springs, old west mining towns, historic cemeteries, and the infamous Magruder Corridor and Lolo Motoway.
U.S.A./72 min
* IDAHO FILM
Idaho Wine, From Bud to Taste Bud * WORLD PREMIERE
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Drew Allen
Producer: Rhea Allen
The Idaho wine making tale is ripe and ready for picking. Not only to promote local business, but to increase economic viability and to highlight Idaho’s vineyards and wineries in the national arena. This feature length documentary will explore from bud to taste bud including Idaho culinary arts. It’ll highlight the past, the fruitful future, educate and explore modern agricultural (specifically viticultural) practices by seamlessly blending the voices of those whose lives are impacted by the Idaho wine industry.
U.S.A./72 min.
* IDAHO FILM
Most Likely to Succeed
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Greg Whiteley
Producer: Adam Leibowitz
For most of the last century, entry-level jobs were plentiful, and college was an affordable path to a fulfilling career. That world no longer exists. The feature-length documentary MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED examines the history of education, revealing the growing shortcomings of our school model in today’s innovative world. The film follows students in a school created to prepare graduates for the innovation era. There, over the course of a school year, ninth graders take on ambitious, project-based challenges that promote critical skills rather than rote memorization and, indirectly, bring to life new approaches that revolutionize school as we know it.
U.S.A./86 min
Omo Child: The River and the Bush
Director: John Rowe
Producers: John Rowe, Tyler Rowe
For many generations people in the Omo Valley [southwest Ethiopia] believed some children are cursed and that these ‘cursed’ children bring disease, drought and death to the tribe. The curse is called ‘mingi’ and mingi children are killed.
Lale Labuko, a young educated man from the Kara was 15 years old when he saw a child in his village killed and also learned that he had 2 older sisters he never knew who had been killed. He decided one day he would stop this horrific practice.
Filmed over a five year period we follow Lale’s journey along with the people of his tribe as they attempt to change an ancient practice.
Ethiopia/89 min.
English/Kara
Personal Gold
Director: Tamara Christopherson
Producer: Sky Christopherson
Writer: James Lockard
Reed Albergotti of The Wall Street Journal describes PERSONAL GOLD as ‘Miracle meets Moneyball’, a film with a behind-the-scenes look into how four underdog women cyclists become America’s hope for a medal at the 2012 London Olympics after the men’s team is banned during the Lance Armstrong drug scandal.
The underfunded women turn to volunteers, including their husbands and a ‘Quantified Self’ experiment using ‘Data not Drugs’ in an attempt to do the impossible; win the first U.S. Women’s Track Cycling medal in over 20 years.
U.S.A./88 min
Nat Geo WILD’s Secret Garden * WORLD PREMIERE
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Jan Haft
Script: Gerwig Lawitzky, Thassilo Franke
Narrator: Nancy Giles
The garden has long epitomized paradise, and many of us derive great pleasure in creating our own Garden of Eden. With the help of nature, we fashion a world of beguiling scents and colors – but many of the creatures that live here go unnoticed, leading secretive and mysterious lives. Stunning high definition footage and time-lapse photography reveal the vibrant colors of the seasons as we journey into an unknown and exotic wilderness that is our own back garden.
U.S.A./45 min
Stray Dog
Director: Debra Granik
Producers: Anne Rosellini, Victoria Stewart
Harley-Davidson, leather, tattooed biceps: Ron “Stray Dog” Hall looks like an authentic tough guy. A Vietnam veteran, he runs a trailer park in rural Missouri with his wife, Alicia, who recently emigrated from Mexico. Gradually, a layered image comes into focus of a man struggling to come to terms with his combat experience. When Alicia’s teenage sons arrive, the film reveals a tender portrait of an America outside the mainstream. Stray Dog is a powerful look at the veteran experience, a surprising love story, and a fresh exploration of what it takes to survive in the hardscrabble heartland.
U.S.A./105 min.
English/Spanish
True Appaloosa * INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Conor Woodman
Executive Producer: Clare Handford
A 69-year old horse-woman from California sets off on an extraordinary journey to find the truth about the origins of the Appaloosa spotted horse. Back in the saddle for the first time in 12 years, she crosses one of the world’s highest mountain ranges in search of a lost valley. There, she hopes to discover whether the experts have been wrong all along, and that the true source of the North American Appaloosa horse in Asia – and not Europe as the history books would have us believe. An inspirational adventure story inspired by a lifelong passion for horses.
U.S.A., Pakistan/73 min
Unbranded **Work in Progress Screening**
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Director: Philip Baribeau
Producer: Dennis Aig
Featuring: Ben Masters, Ben Thamer, Thomas Glover, Jonny Fitzsimons
Four young men take an unprecedented journey on adopted mustangs from the Mexican to the Canadian border through the backcountry of the American West. Their goal: to prove the worth of the iconic horses that are the subject of often bitter controversy. As they cover the 3000 miles of often unforgiving landscapes, the riders succumb to the contradictory tensions of camaraderie and rivalry. Filmed almost exclusively by first-time feature director Phillip Baribeau, who was with the riders nearly every mile of the way. As with so many Western films, Unbranded’s story is a metaphor for the decisive actions needed to preserve wild places and their animals and the personal and political conflicts that threaten these national treasures.
U.S.A./106 min
Nat Geo WILD’s Wild Yellowstone * WORLD PREMIERE
* Filmmakers in Attendance
Executive Producers: Karen Bass, Curt Morgan, Chad Jackson, Joseph Sorge, Shon Tomlin
Producers: Joe Kennedy, Tom Stephens
Yellowstone is a place of wonder. All life is focused on thing. Survival. There’s no place in Earth like Wild Yellowstone. Our cameras take a deep look into this gorgeous land and the animals that reside here.
U.S.A./49 min