20 May Mountainfilm: “Unbranded” Premieres
The stunning new documentary feature film UNBRANDED – from director/veteran cinematographer Phillip Baribeau and a team including executive producer Cindy Meehl, the director of the acclaimed Oscar-shortlisted documentary BUCK – has its U.S. premiere at Telluride Mountainfilm in Telluride, Colorado Saturday, May 23, and Sunday, May 24 (an outdoor screening, fittingly set against the backdrop of the Rockies). Filmmakers and subjects will attend screenings and participate in no-miss Q & As.
The critically-acclaimed film won the Audience Award at the Hot Docs Canadian Documentary Festival in Toronto last month, where it took diverse audiences on an incredible journey. It was competing with 208 other films.
Sixteen mustangs, four men, one dream: to ride border to border, Mexico to Canada, up the spine of the American West. The documentary, UNBRANDED, tracks four fresh-out-of-college buddies as they take on wild mustangs to be their trusted mounts and set out on the adventure of a lifetime. Their wildness of spirit, in both man and horse, is quickly dwarfed by the wilderness they must navigate: a 3000-mile gauntlet through five states that is equally indescribable and unforgiving. In this story of rugged independence, UNBRANDED reveals the true interdependence of man, animal and nature.
As we see first-hand, Ben Masters, Jonny Fitzsimons, Thomas Glover and Ben Thamer, relied upon the incredible strength and energy of mustangs – these wild horses – who had been chosen and trained for this purpose. The group set out to inspire adoptions of the 50,000 wild horses living in holding pens in the American West and to bring attention to the fragile ecosystem and this last uninterrupted vertical stretch of public land in the West. Along the way, the support they receive from others, including a veteran horseman and cowboy poet named Val Geisler, whose life has been deeply connected to horses and the back country, creates a meaningful bond among the men and the animals.
With exquisite cinematography of breathtaking terrain from the Grand Canyon to Yellowstone to Glacier Park, UNBRANDED offers both an edge-of-your-seat, death-defying intensity as well as captivating and immersive experience of a journey through a stretch of North America most people never have an opportunity to experience.
Check out the TRAILER here:
Check out the description on the Telluride Mountainfilm website:
And read an essay byBen Masters about “A simple animal, a complex problem and an epic journey” here.
UNBRANDED Screenings at Telluride Mountainfilm
Sunday, May 24, 8:45 p.m., at BASE CAMP, Telluride Town Park Main Stage – a special outdoor screening set against a backdrop of the Rockies)
Official website for UNBRANDED.
Credits:
Director: Phillip Baribeau
Producer: Dennis Aig
Editor: Scott Chestnut
Executive Producer: Cindy Meehl
Cinematographer: Phillip Baribeau, Korey Kaczmarek
Composer: Noah Sorota
Sound: Luke the Mustang
NOTE: An accompanying book, also titled UNBRANDED, is available from Texas A&M University Press in hardcover and paperback.
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