WAR PONY Trailer (2023) Drama Movie

WAR PONY Trailer (2023) Drama Movie

WAR PONY Trailer (2023) Drama Movie
© 2023 - Momentum Pictures

Riley Keough makes an impactful co-directorial debut alongside Gina Gammell with War Pony.

PEOPLE is exclusively debuting the first trailer for the drama, which first debuted in May 2022 at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Camera d’Or.

The film follows two young Oglala Lakota men growing up on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation.

"At 23, Bill (Jojo Bapteise Whiting) just wants to make something of himself," reads a synopsis. "Whether it’s delivering goods or breeding Poodles, he is determined to hustle his way to the 'American Dream.' "

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At the same time, "12-year-old Matho (Ladainian Crazy Thunder) can’t wait to become a man. Desperate for approval from his young father, a series of impulsive decisions turns Matho’s life upside down and he finds himself unequipped to deal with the harsh realities of the adult world."

The story deals with identity, family and loss and a desire to belong.

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Keough, 34, spoke about the film with PEOPLE in a joint interview with Gammell plus co-writer Franklin Sioux Bob and co-producer Willi White.

She said their goal with making War Pony was to help elevate the stories of those in Pine Ridge, where she spent a lot of time filming the 2016 film American Honey.

"A lot of people from Pine Ridge have been through a lot of so much in life, and there's a life experience and a depth and a profound connection to life and to the earth that is super grounding and almost emotional," Keough says.

While the themes like grief, rejection, family and love are concepts Keough can "relate to" and are "global," the Daisy Jones & The Six actress stresses of herself and her co-director, "We tried to take ourselves out of it entirely in terms of even the ways we would write the scenes. So it's very much their voices, their dialect, their dialogue."

Franklin Sioux Bob — who has a part in the movie and also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Keough, Gammell and Bill Reddy, the latter of whom inspired the character of Bill — adds, "Most of the script and just everything is based on real-life experiences or real-life stories or real life."

"Everything was based on a true event that either I myself lived through or the group of friends that the script revolved around lived," says Bob.

"It's very true to the area [but] not necessarily the same for all Natives — it's not all Natives on our res are doing this, it's just us," he continues. "And it shows that you can't fake that authenticity and that realism and the way our dialogue is, the way we were able to go back and forth with each other."

"But it's still all love. That's Pine Ridge. That's just where we came from," Bob adds.

Keough says she made friends with Bob and Reddy in 2015 on the set of American Honey, where they bonded to the point of Keough feeling "really sad" when she had to leave South Dakota — so much so that she returned a week later, this time bringing Gammell with her.
The film that resulted as part of their relationships with Reddy and Bob was really one borne out of "friendship" more than a quest for any kind of specific story to be told.

"I think it just started off with creating without results in mind," says Gammell, who also makes her directorial debut with War Pony. "We were just friends who shared ideas and shared experiences and made stuff and played around. It was kind of playing like you do with your kids. That was kind of the genesis part. There wasn't like, 'Oh, we're coming in to make a movie and study a subject.' It was just experiencing life together."
Bob tells PEOPLE of War Pony, "I know it's going to be relatable on a lot of spectrums, but this is not a representation of all Natives. This is just a group of Natives that happen to be in Pine Ridge."
"Not speaking for all Natives, because I know people are going to try and do that," he adds. "It's not that. It's just a group and a crew that I happen to come up with. And this is our collective story and it happened to be spread out throughout the community, and I appreciate that."

White says he believes stories like the one told in War Pony "are really important because, for so long, Hollywood has framed Native people in this country as a monolith."
"It's not just a race thing. We have treaties with the United States government and all of that. And I think that that's a shared experience that we have across the board," the filmmaker says. "But there's also that context in which we live in today that is a result of colonization — a result of that history of the founding of this country, and how it has treated Indigenous people."
"I think this story gives people a glimpse of where our communities are today. That there are communities like [this where] everyday life is that journey of figuring it out and trying to survive," White adds.

War Pony is in select theaters July 28.