MUSTANG. Derived from the Spanish mestengo—stray, wild, having no master, and from mostrenco—“obscure.”
And so, out of the darkness, comes a herd of masterless strays, brought by the colonizers, left like a papertrail of conquest:
500 years of these living symbols, these galloping canvases, pacing over the plains and mountains, upon which Americans, indigenous and non-, have scribed their mythologies of the western pioneer, the warrior, the cowboy, the poet.
Some contemporary land managers and agronomists would prefer to look past the symbolic aura of the mustang and see them as pests—as a non-native, invasive population. Currently 60,000 of these mustangs are held in permanent holding facilities by the Bureau of Land Management, and thousands continue to be rounded up and captured every year.
In learning about this population we didn’t expect to find that their fate would so directly intersect with the fate of another population, a human one, that the state is also actively trying to “manage.”
2.2 million people are incarcerated in the U.S. and 6.9 million are under some sort of correctional supervision. With only 4.4 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. nonetheless holds 22 percent of the world’s total incarcerated people.
Mass incarceration has become a particularly American story. Some American writers and thinkers have theorized this national penchant for imprisonment as the dark evolution of a country born out of colonization, genocide, and slavery.
Meanwhile a popular mythology about America as a land of freedom persists, sustained in part by enduring symbols like the mustang and its wild frontier. To come to the grounds of the Florence, AZ Prison Complex and see real breathing creatures emerge out of the haze of the mythos we have woven around them, while simultaneously seeing real human men, with names and histories, emerge as individuals out of the dizzying but impersonal statistics around mass incarceration, and for both to meet there on those grounds, within that prison, was an experience we could never have imagined.
While making a documentary about inmates that work with wild horses, I e-mailed Laura Leigh, a wild horse expert, asking for advice on how to film a helicopter roundup. She said if I wanted to film a roundup this year, I’d better come to Nevada in two days because that’s the last chance I’ll have. I was on a plane the next day, but I didn't expect that Laura's personal story would captivate me so deeply. Today “The Fate of the Wild", a film I made about her life is finished, and you can find it on The New Yorker, along with a companion article by Carolyn Kormann.
In a desperate attempt to return home, an abducted child soldier risks his life to flee from Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) deep in central Africa after years of being forced to fight. When capture appears imminent, he encounters a stranger who must decide whether to help him – risking his own life, and the respect of his community.
Story by: The men, women and children in DR Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan who shared their experiences of loss and survival. Their unified desire for peace inspired this story.
Created by: Lindsay Branham
Directed by: Andrew Ellis
Co-Director: Alex Mallis
Producer: Lindsay Branham
Writer: Michael Koehler
JONAH - an interview with a former African American slave accompanies a powerful dance vignette of an urban man in extremis. The juxtaposition of past and present raises questions about inherited trauma and the possibility of regeneration.
A HELIX PRODUCTION
Directed by Andrew Michael Ellis
Performed by Ernest Felton Baker
Cinematography by Andrew Michael Ellis and Ben Stamper
Edited by Ben Stamper
Additional Cinematography by Sasha Aryutunova
Special Thanks to Jonathan Seale
Winner San Francisco Dance Film Festival Best Short Film
Vimeo Staff Pick
Official Selection
Leeds International Film Festival
Dance on Camera Festival at Lincoln Center
Telluride MountainFilm Festival
Bucharest International Dance Film Festival
Topanga Film Festival
San Francisco Black Film Festival
Pan African Film Festival
Tiny Dance Film Festival
Harlem International Film Festival
San Francisco Short Dance Film Festival
New Voices in Black Cinema at BAM
Black International Film Festival
Big Sky Documentary Film Festival
Krakow Film Festival
Tampere Film Festival
Nashville Film Festival
Dance Camera West
LA Film Festival
Savannah Film Festival
San Francisco Dance Film Festival
Port Townsend Film Festival
Small family farmers like Jesus Ramos are in trouble. And when the farmers are in trouble, the country is in trouble.
Role: Director + Cinematographer + Editor
Production Company : MediaStorm
As a celebrated interior designer loses her eyesight to macular degeneration, she begins to see her life’s work in a new light. This eccentric renegade topples ageist stereotypes and captures our hearts as she grapples with the terms of her aging body.
View the full film here