Upcoming Equine Film Fest Celebrates Local Mustangs

The upcoming EQUUS Film & Arts Fest will bring documentaries, art, literature, and panel discussions focused on local horse management to Northern New Mexico. You're watching the Local News Network, brought to you by 3 Rivers Brewery and Northern Edge Casino. I'm Connor Shreve. Now in its 12th year with 13 festivals across the country, EQUUS is making its first trip to the 4 Corners area, July 26th through the 28th.

We're an all equestrian themed film festival start out in St. Charles, Illinois, and then move to New York, and now we travel all over the country with different locations. We're going to be in Aztec, New Mexico to kind of work on telling the story of Mustangs and horse, general horses, but mostly where our focus is going to be on Jicarilla mustang.

Founder Lisa Diersen says, the 4 Corners festival brings all the intention of its national events with a spotlight on the local area. And the event gives local filmmakers a chance to show their work, like the documentary RAMBO of the Carracas Mesa.

But it's about Jicarilla mustangs that are based in that 4 Corners area. And Laura Harper, who's the filmmaker on that documentary came down and she lives in Farmington.

In addition to the arts, the accompanying Mustang Summit focuses on live herd management. In the case of EQUUS, Aztec, specifically the local Jicarilla mustang,

I don't want to live in a country where we do the same thing with our wild horses that they're doing in Australia, which is, they have, they're calling the herds in Australia of the Brumbies, and they're killing 60,000 horses this year.

She says, during the planning stages for the EQUUS Aztec event, there was so much local interest. The event blossomed from a one-day event to an all weekend, three-day function, with panels, Q&A sessions and local veterinarians on hand. EQUUS includes plenty of education for festival goers.

Well, we're going to be talking a lot about a lot of the issues around Jicarilla mustang horses, the Forest Service, how the BLM and the tribes all take care of their wild horses. We have a series of panels that we do at all of our events that talk about the different equine-assisted therapy.

EQUUS Aztec 4 Corners runs from July 26th through the 28th at the Lenoir Hotel in Aztec. You can find the info on this and other stories at farmingtonlocal.news. Thanks for watching this edition of The Local News Network. I'm Connor Shrieve.