The film is executive produced by Robert Redford, Patti Scialfa Springsteen and Jessica Springsteen.
“America’s wild horses are fighting their last stand,” said Executive Producer Robert Redford. “Increasing competition for our natural resources threatens our wilderness areas, our wild horses and other wildlife species. Horses are interwoven into the very fabric of what is America. What threatens them threatens us all.”
There are nearly 80,000 wild horses on our public lands and more than 60,000 in government corrals. Centered on the current controversy surrounding the preservation of these American icons, the film highlights individuals and groups across the United States who are working with wild horses, including an organization that pairs mustangs and veterans with PTSD. Other stories include photographers documenting mustangs in the wild, a group that helps manage population growth with fertility control, the legacy of a woman named “Wild Horse Annie” who mobilized a grassroots campaign with schoolchildren in the 1970s to protect wild horses with legislation that saved them from the brink of extinction and a sanctuary in California named Return to Freedom that reunites mustangs that were rounded up on the range.
The 90-minute documentary features a soundtrack with songs by American musical icons Bruce Springsteen (“Chasin’ Wild Horses”), Emmylou Harris (Leonard Cohen’s “Ballad of a Runaway Horse”), and Willie Nelson (“Ride Me Back Home”), and the original song “Never Gonna Tame You,” performed by Platinum-selling artist Blanco Brown and written by iconic songwriter Diane Warren, a 15-time Oscar® nominee and GRAMMY®, Emmy® and two-time Golden Globe® award winner whose songs have been featured in over 100 motion pictures and has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The film highlights the work of Operation Wild Horse, an organization, that pairs mustangs and veterans with PTSD. Consulting Producer Gerry Byrne, a Marine Corps Vietnam Veteran and prominent veterans’ activist, comments, “The Mustangs highlights the importance of addressing the pressures of PTSD and the ‘hidden wounds of war’. I commend the film for showcasing the work of veterans who are making a difference.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David Philipps (Wild Horse Country: The History, Myth, and Future of the Mustang), who is featured in the film says, “The wild horse is so ingrained in the American imagination that even for those who have never seen one know what it stands for: fierce independence, unbridled freedom, the bedrock ideals of the nation. From car ads to high school mascots, the wild horse – popularly known as the mustang – is the enduring icon of America. But in modern times it has become entangled in controversy and bureaucracy, and now its future is in question.”
“America’s wild horses represent freedom, strength and resilience,” said Emmy Award-Winning Producer and Co-Director Steven Latham. “So many people are unaware of the challenges the mustang faces to survive in a changing world.”
In 1900, there were two million wild horses in the West. By the 1950s, there were less than 20,000 due to their exploitation. After a federal law passed in 1971 to protect wild horses, their population started growing. Today, the Bureau of Land Management says there should be about 26,000 wild horses on public lands across 10 western states. Wild mustang numbers have risen in modern times to upwards of 80,000, and the film explores the challenges of managing an expanding population with no natural predators. The Bureau of Land Management plans on rounding up 20,000 wild horses a year.
