The Big Picture From directors Riley Keough and Gina Gammell, and written in collaboration with Franklin Sioux Bob and Bill Reddy, the indie drama War Pony tells the stories of two young Oglala Lakota men, Bill , a 23-year-old with an ambition for something more, and Matho , a 12-year-old determined to live in the adult world. On the Pine Ridge Reservation, harsh realities and a lack of opportunity can influence decisions made, in regard to one’s identity and one’s family.
GINA GAMMELL: It was an uphill battle. It got received really differently internationally than it has in America, for obvious reasons. But we had these incredible friendships and this incredible family and we feel so dedicated, even now. We just kept pushing the rock up the hill because there were a lot of people that were worth fighting for and alongside.
Do you think it really helped that you were both doing this together? Do you think you would have been as persistent, if either one of you were trying to do this by yourself?GAMMELL: I don’t think it would have been humanly possible to do this movie alone. So much of the process of this film was the friendships. It was such a huge cast. It was such a huge collaboration that, so often, one of us was needed somewhere and the other was needed somewhere else.
One of the things that people always talk about is tone. How did you view the tone for this? What were the challenges in finding the right tone and making sure you kept that authentic, throughout the film? This very much feels like a slice of life, where we don’t really know what happened before or what might happen after we’re watching these people. We just go through every emotion with them, in this moment. It felt so authentic for me because that’s just life.
To balance that, was there a best day on set? Was there a day that everything just went smoothly, or was there always some sort of challenge?