Loved your movie. It’s the best film I’ve ever seen on the new west which in terms of ranchers and cowboys is the same as it ever was. The film is utterly genuine. - Jim Harrison author of “Legends of the Fall”
"Ridin' for the Brand" is the real deal. Looking beyond the cowboy myth, Alton's film captures the slog and grind of ranch work, documenting a way of life on the brink of extinction. - William Hjortsberg screenwriter, Legend, Angel Heart
"Ridin' for the Brand" is a tender and penetrating look at a vanishing way of life. Family ranching is besieged on all sides, and Miss Alton's documentary vividly show how ranchers struggle, and the rewards and sorrows they experience as change closes in on them.
Richard S. Wheeler Western Author
"Ridin' for the Brand" is visual poetry at its best. Alton knocks off the trial dust of the contemporary cowboy lifestyle without any gentrification. This documentary gem captures the raw corral reality of a hard workin', hard livin' ranchers doin' what they love best in a survival-of-the-fittest backdrop. It is an elegant mosiac of images and a historic legacy of families who first drove cattle from Texas to Montana and their present economic and environmental struggles. Grit, wit, humor, and wisdom shine in Alton's straight arrow narration in this dyin' American breed. - Art Coelho American Poet
This is a wonderful, heartfelt and cautionary story of a way of life that is the West - a West that some of us still hold dear to our hearts. This is a way of life that is sadly vanishing at the hands of developers and those who move to our home bringing their sad, destructive ways with them. Thank you for creating this talented, compassionate and energetic effort. John Holt Author
Article in the "Vigilante" Helena, MT http://helenavigilante.com/archives/11470
Article in the "Vigilante" Helena, MT http://helenavigilante.com/archives/11470
http://filmstewdotcom.blogspot.com/2013/10/montana-cattle-ranching-stephanie-alton-riding-for-the-brand.html
The screening schedule so far for Stephanie Alton's documentary Ridin' for the Brand has been short and Montana-sweet.
The movie sneaked in February at the Big Timber Cinema in Cottonwood, followed by a July outdoor screening at The Livingston Depot in Livingston. This weekend, her look at a year in the life of three practitioners of the age-old Montana concern known as cattle-ranching is tethered to the Myrna Loy Center in Helena.
The film shows this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Among those who have already seen the film is Jim Harrison, author of the novella Legends of the Fall, Oscar-winningly adapted in 1994 with Brad Pitt and Sir Anthony Hopkins. He raves: "Loved your movie. It’s the best film I’ve ever seen on the new west which in terms of ranchers and cowboys is the same as it ever was. The film is utterly genuine."
Alton got her first education at Tacoma's Pacific Lutheran University, the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and NYU film school. But this movie is about her second education gained on various ranches around Montana.
She will be at both screenings for a Q&A, alongside some of the featured ranchers, Montana Historical Society historian Brian Shovers and reps for the Western Sustainability Exchange. As Alton explained to Helena Independent Record arts and entertainment reporter Marga Lincoln, she came to Montanaafter meeting a wrangler way out northwest in Alaska and following him back to Big Sky country. The rest is documentary history, although it took her ten years to complete the movie, aided by $20,000 from Kickstarter.
The screening schedule so far for Stephanie Alton's documentary Ridin' for the Brand has been short and Montana-sweet.
The movie sneaked in February at the Big Timber Cinema in Cottonwood, followed by a July outdoor screening at The Livingston Depot in Livingston. This weekend, her look at a year in the life of three practitioners of the age-old Montana concern known as cattle-ranching is tethered to the Myrna Loy Center in Helena.
The film shows this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Among those who have already seen the film is Jim Harrison, author of the novella Legends of the Fall, Oscar-winningly adapted in 1994 with Brad Pitt and Sir Anthony Hopkins. He raves: "Loved your movie. It’s the best film I’ve ever seen on the new west which in terms of ranchers and cowboys is the same as it ever was. The film is utterly genuine."
Alton got her first education at Tacoma's Pacific Lutheran University, the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and NYU film school. But this movie is about her second education gained on various ranches around Montana.
She will be at both screenings for a Q&A, alongside some of the featured ranchers, Montana Historical Society historian Brian Shovers and reps for the Western Sustainability Exchange. As Alton explained to Helena Independent Record arts and entertainment reporter Marga Lincoln, she came to Montanaafter meeting a wrangler way out northwest in Alaska and following him back to Big Sky country. The rest is documentary history, although it took her ten years to complete the movie, aided by $20,000 from Kickstarter.