a film by Carrie Lederer
A homeless man recovering from alcoholism
escapes to a remote southern Colorado mesa
and forges a new path living amongst wild horses.
ABOUT THE FILM
Coloradoan John Wayne Smith was homeless for eight years working through recovery when he resettled himself on a high desert mesa where wild horses roamed. A wounded pregnant mare showed up at his door and John nursed her back to health, later delivering her foal he affectionately named Blizzard. The profound bond sets into motion an unexpected healing journey into the wonderful world of wild horses.
Four years later we meet John coexisting with several bands of mustangs that he has come to intimately know in a way that few people have experienced. Living with a hundred wild horses and a mule has given him an alternative path versus a system that he felt was not serving him, however living the life of a rugged individualist alone on a mesa presents its own set of challenges, even for someone named after tough guy John Wayne. John also eventually realizes that the resource scarcity he was familiar with when he was homeless may threaten his beloved mustangs.
a film by Carrie Lederer
My passion for environmental protection and conservation compelled me to pick up a camera in college to cover stories that strengthened the audience’s bond with nature and brought out innate human values. It was easy to infuse the idea that nature heals and to emphasize how we must protect what we love when I was furthering the missions of nonprofits but pitching those concepts in unscripted TV was not popular. In the end, I spent decades directing, producing and shooting docu reality shows on a wide range of topics and themes that mostly skimmed the surface, but my non-profit and documentary work was what made me most proud. Recently I resolved to return to independent documentary filmmaking and was waiting for the right opportunity. Fortuitously a Facebook friend suggested I explore the John Wayne Smith story.
I was immediately drawn to this remarkable journey of a man osmosed from addiction and homelessness to sobriety and stewardship. My experience directing A&E’s Intervention led me to understand that untreated trauma is a common root of substance abuse and homelessness, and true recovery stories are rare. Homelessness often evokes varying levels of empathy and understanding but we rarely hear the individual stories behind the statistics. John's story also aligned with my personal interests in the interconnectedness between nature and mankind, sustainability, and horses as healing agents.
​
John Wayne Smith was instantly captivating, a rugged and resilient individual who embodied the frontier spirit yet beneath his exterior lay a soul deeply scarred by past trauma. I saw the chance to capture John’s healing process with wild horses in real time. As a fly on the wall, I could unobtrusively observe through my lens the seasonal rhythms of life on the mesa, the solitude, and the lingering demons, all juxtaposed with the joy brought by the wild horses at John’s door. This approach allowed me to create a deeply immersive film experience for my audience, further enhanced by the natural sounds from the mesa. Johns’s routines included a daily guitar jam and the blues tunes he strummed were the perfect lyrical accompaniment for punctuating John’s highs and lows. The music also serves to trigger viewer’s nostalgia for the western cowboy.
Ultimately the film pierces the romantic veil of the dominating stoic American rugged individualist frontier philosophy and exposes the universal human struggles for meaning and belonging and sustainable living as part of the natural world.