The “American dream” takes it for its number with war pony by Gina Gammell and Riley Keough, winner of the Caméra d’or in 2022 then multi-awarded at the last Deauville Festival. Two young Native Americans aged 12 and 23 make common cause there to try to survive in a world that, at best, ignores them but most often humiliates them in their attempts to get by.
The Oglala Lakota tribe is at the center of a story that does not spare its characters. For their first production, Riley Keough (known as an actress with Andrea Arnold and David Robert Mitchell) and Gina Gammell reveal an America that is not conducive to the development of minorities. “The meeting of Bill Reddy and Franklin Sioux Bob, who were extras on the set ofAmerican Honey in South Dakota, marked Riley to the point that she inspired us to film, ”explains Gina Gammell to 20 minutes. The two young people also co-wrote the screenplay with the directors.
Very involved co-writers
“The collaboration of these two young people was essential so that two white women are legitimate to tell this story, insists Gina Gammell. Their experience of exclusion and their daily life had to be at the center of a story that gives them a voice. They were very involved in the writing. It is undoubtedly from this naturalistic side, drawing from the real life of courageous heroes, that the strength of war pony. The spectator would like to be able to come and lend a hand to these Native Americans who have been flouted by history and abused by today’s society.