Director's Statement

Throughout my career I have tried to raise awareness and change public attitudes about many issues - always using personal stories to illustrate a bigger theme. For many years I've been fascinated by stories of redemption and the idea that most people are never beyond reaching - if the right intervention takes place at the right time. When the story of the Wild Horse Inmate Program came to my attention, I felt I had found the right personal story with which to illustrate the bigger issue.

The more I learned about this story, the more I became convinced this was a unique opportunity to create a film that can change hearts and minds, while also reaching a very large audience. This was a very exciting prospect for me as a filmmaker.

John Zaritsky - Academy Award Winner

The story of the men and horses of the throughout my career I have tried to raise awareness and change public attitudes about many issues - always using personal stories to illustrate a bigger theme. For many years I've been fascinated by stories of redemption and the idea that most people are never beyond reaching - if the right intervention takes place at the right time. When the story of the Wild Horse Inmate Program came to my attention, I felt I had found the right personal story with which to illustrate the bigger issue. The more I learned about this story, the more I became convinced this was a unique opportunity to create a film that can change hearts and minds, while also reaching a very large audience. This was a very exciting prospect for me as a filmmaker. The story of the men and horses of the Wild Horse Inmate Program is a perfect cinematic situation. It is a self-contained story that unfolded before my camera over a defined period of time; the action and the participants told the story, without the need for the use of expert commentators; the characters are compelling, complex, and attractive; the setting is stunning. The journeys of the characters are dramatic, emotional, unpredictable and varied. There is success and failure. But in the successes is the underlying message I want to get across to my audience: that even the most habitual of criminals, caged in a justice system not known for its humanity, can find a way out, a way through to a personal salvation - given the opportunity.

Jon Peterson, inmate and horse trainer

Jon Peterson, our lead character, has been in prison 19 of his 42 years of life. Until he started participating in this program, he had no hope of anything better. If he is arrested again after his release, he will spend the rest of his life in prison as an habitual criminal. The lessons he has learned from working with the wild horses - creatures so much like himself - have given him hope for the first time. That he was also trusted to pass on his knowledge to other inmates is a huge step forward for him. But when he is released, there are no guarantees he will remain free, and the odds are against him.

As a Canadian filmmaker, I feel I have always been more interested in, and ready to tell, stories that might go against the political climate of the times. Canadian governments are increasingly taking the U.S. example in matters of law and order as a template for changes to our own system. That example is seen to be one of harsher punishment: more frequent incarceration, longer sentences, less 'coddling' of prisoners. And yet here is an example of a program - in a southern U.S. state, currently Republican - that is taking the opposite approach and finding success.

In a way, I am inspired to tell this story because of the increasing homelessness I see around me in Vancouver. There are many factors contributing to this situation, but the one that concerns me most is a shift towards an "every man for himself" attitude that is causing many of us, and our institutions, to turn our backs on the less fortunate. The inmates in the Canon City facility are quite likely to end up living on the streets, as are our own ex-cons. For some of them, the Wild Horse Inmate Program is their last chance to avoid this fate. Those of us in the well-off countries of the Western world should see that - given a chance - the most unlikely people can achieve rehabilitation, and find a way forward.

If The Wild Horse Redemption helps change some minds, I will have done my job.

John Zaritsky
Vancouver