Synopsis + technical information THE RIDE · 2016-04-13 · Short Synopsis : THE RIDE tells the horseride of a Sioux group, on the road that the Big Foot tribu took before their massacre

id

THE RIDE a film by

Stéphanie Gillard

Logline :

How can one be Sioux when one is American as well?

How to be part of a country that has been built on the ashes of your people?

Year of production : 2016

Genre : Documentary – Human Interest / Social Interest

Location : USA – South Dakota

Language : English

Subtitles available : English and french

Length : 87'

DCP : 24 fps – DCP 2K – Color HD – 1:77 - Sound : 5.1

Director : Stéphanie Gillard (First feature)

Script : Stéphanie Gillard

Featuring : Jesse James White, Jimmy White, Manaja Hill, A.J.Agard, Ron his horse is thunder

Cinematographer : Martin de Chabaneix

Sound recordist : Erwan Kerzanet

Edit : Laure Saint-Marc

Sound edit : Serge Rouquairol

Sound mix : Eric Tisserand

Music : Vincent Bourre

Production :

ROUGE INTERNATIONAL – Julie Gayet & Nadia Turincev

6 rue de Braque

75003 Paris

+33 9 51 25 13 58

contact : Thomas Lambert

[email protected]

website : www.rouge-international.com

Coproducers :

Ezekiel Film Production – Antoun Sehnaoui

Ciné 8 – Etienne Mallet, David Gauquié, Julien Deris, Franck Elbase, Nicoles Lesage

TV Pre-sale (France) :

Equidia

Facebook's page of THE RIDE :

https://www.facebook.com/theridefilm/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Trailer's link :

https://vimeo.com/95311933

Film's link :

with english subtitles

https://vimeo.com/148090903

password : Th3Rid3V@

with french subtitles

https://vimeo.com/148090849

password : th3Rid3

Short Synopsis :

THE RIDE tells the horseride of a Sioux group, on the road that the Big Foot tribu took before their

massacre in Wounded Knee. A time travel in the memory of their ancestors, a journey to rebuild a

lost identity confronting the United States of American to its own History.

Long Synopsis :

This film is about the Big Foot Ride.

Every winter a group of hundreds Lakota Sioux ride horses along the route originally taken by the

Big Foot Tribe running away the American Army before being killed at Wounded Knee. This event is

not any point in the history of the Native Americans. This is the one that seals the end of the

Indian wars.

This film is about the ride itself: 300 hundred miles horse riding in 2 weeks. We will focus on a few

of the riders: Indian cowboys, old Vietnam veterans or young kids who never rode before while

they spend days on horse and nights in crappy gyms or sleeping outside in the cold.

This film is also about how History has shaped the present. On this journey, our characters will tell

us about their life and about what happened on the same route 125 years earlier. They talk about

what the United States have made to this nation and its representatives for generations:

evangelism, acculturation, deletion of the language, theft of land continuing insidiously.

This film is also about transmission. How they use this ride to transmit their culture and values to

the younger generation and how it helps them overcome the difficulties of life in the reservations

the rest of the year? In this event, they are no longer victims, assisted, alcoholics, unemployed,

suicidal, people with no future and no culture, but facing the cold, blizzards, snow, hunger, and

also the eyes of others, they are courage, solidarity and dignity. This ride is a path to become self,

to simply become Lakota.

It is a different point of view on Native Americans as during the 15 days of the ride they raise their

heads high and are not in the miserable state in which they are represented so often. The journey

is on a trail of tears but it is lived by the riders as a joyful moment and it makes it a very

compelling and uplifting story.

Style :

The film will only span the time of the ride and focus on a few of the riders. Step by step, we will

follow the events, obstacles and difficulties of this adventure using a direct, observational style. By

shooting this way, the film will effectively focus on the stories and emotions that surface during the

journey, and in turn, cinematically place the audience in the moment. No voice-over, no archives,

no "specialists" or "historians", no political speeches… History will be told here by today's natives,

with their own words.

The film will try to get close to their humanity, by their words, their moves, their silences, their

looks, their hesitations, their emotions and their humour. The stories they tell us are often

atrocious but never maudlin. They have their unique style, a form of comedy close to the black

humour, mixed with distance.

The visual context is very strong: Sioux riders that arise in the Great Plains, along a highway

between gleaming trucks and petrol stations. All along the film we will have this opposition

between nature, the open land on which they once lived, and the cheap, plastic universe of today's

America. Barbed wire fences are everywhere as boundaries that the tribe cannot cross, even on

their own reservation.

The music accompanying the film will be very important: country music they listen to or round

dance and traditional songs they sing with the drums.