Festival Predictions

2021 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Riley Keough & Gina Gammell’s War Pony (Fka Beast))

Published on November 16, 2020

A South Dakota micro indie project that filmed under the radar in Pine Ridge is the fruit of a creative collaboration (the shingle is called Felix Culpa) between actress Riley Keough and producer/commercials director Gina Gammell. They move behind the camera for Beast – a project that started taking shape in August of 2017 and might still be filming this year. We don’t know much more than this beyond other than it’s populated by non-actor residents/youth and creating an immersive community experience not unlike the work a Jonas Carpignano.

Gist: This tell the stories of three Lakota men on Pine Ridge Reservation. A tale about belonging this features an East Ridge child belonging to a family, a North Ridge man belonging to “America” and a Wounded Knee elder belonging to his tribe.

Production Co./Producers: We believe Alex Orlofsky and Ryan Zacarias (check out our trading card profile) are onboard.

Prediction: NEXT.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).