The Rider

«It’s all the same to a cowboy, you ride through the pain». These bitter words of wisdom, agreed upon by a group of rodeo riders at night by the campfire, becomes a sort of motto for The Rider. It follows Brady, a young horseman who suffers from a self-inflicted injury to the head and therefore cannot ride without seriously risking his own life. The story plays out in the heart of the great American continent, in a landscape made familiar to us through countless Western films, where the sun never seems to set. The film transforms the myth of the masculine cowboy in a profound and touching way to pose an aching question: What do you do when you have to give up on the one thing that makes your life worth living?

«Zhao’s film derives its power from the truth that both drives it and inspires it, and the final result is a wholly unique slice-of-life drama» - Kate Erbland, Indiewire

Chloé Zhao (b. 1982) is a director born in China and now based in the U.S.. She studied at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York, and received much praise for her film Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015). Like The Rider it takes place in the plains of South Dakota.