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Long Rider Films!

In June 2004 Australian Long Rider Tim Cope set off on a 10,000 kilometre solo ride from Mongolia to Hungary. At the conclusion of his epic ride, Tim translated his experiences into a remarkable movie entitled  “On the Trail of Genghis Khan.”  The ground-breaking film has now made cinematic history by winning honours at national film festivals in Canada, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.
In an email to the Guild, Tim reported, “It is quite remarkable that a long riding film has been given such accolades in the face of modern day extreme adventure documentaries. But we are getting horse riding, and these ancient steppe cultures, into the relative mainstream.
French Long Rider Louis Meunier nearly died during his ride across Afghanistan in 2005. But the remarkable young man stayed on in the war-torn country for many years. Besides helping revive the national equestrian game, buz khazi,  Louis organized the country’s first mountain climbing team. 24,000 Feet Above The War is the documentary Louis made that profiles the Afghans who scaled  Afghanistan's highest peak in the Hindu Kush mountains.

Prisoners of the Himalayas is a documentary film aimed at capturing the life of the last Kyrgyz nomads of Afghanistan. The film was directed by French Long Rider Louis Meunier who crossed the country by horse in 2005 and played three years on Kabul´s buzkashi team. Matthieu Paley, the award-winning photographer who worked on the Long  Rider movie, Serko, was the cameraman. The new film documents how the Kyrgyz nomads, who camp in yurts at an altitude of 4,500 meters, survive in the Wakhan Corridor, a thin strip of land hidden in the mountains between Pakistan and Tajikistan. Secluded in their mountain camps, they form the most  isolated high altitude community of the planet.
www.theroofoftheworld.com/index.html   www.paleyphoto.com/

The Way is a dramatic film regarding a man’s journey along the Camino de Santiago, a Christian pilgrimage route which concludes at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. Starring Martin Sheen, and directed by his son, Emilio Estevez, the movie follows the trail taken by a number of Long Riders including the Hanbury-Tenisons, Captain Otto Schwarz, Mefo Phillips, and Steven O’Connor, to name just a few.

In addition to being a Friend of the Guild, John Hare is one of the world’s most intrepid camel travellers. Across the Sahara on a Camel is a riveting new film which recounts how Hare led a caravan of 22 camels nearly 1500 miles from Nigeria to Libya. Though he followed an ancient caravan route, the trail had been forbidden to foreigners for more than fifty years. The profits from the film are being used to help preserve the wild Bactrian camel.

For more information regarding John’s remarkable movie, visit  www.wildcamels.com

Written by French Long Rider, Jean-Louis Gouraud, Chamane ("Shaman") is about a Yakut shaman and a Muscovite violinist who escape a Soviet gulag on horseback. The shaman, Anatolia, promises to guide Dimitri, but Tolia is shot during the escape and dies. His spirit seems to guide Dimitri as the musician begins the arduous journey home across the snowbound taiga. In towns and settlements, Tolia's name seems magic, securing help for Dimitri. The horse, too, becomes savior and companion.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115861/plotsummary

In 1910 Bud and Temple Abernathy, aged 6 and 10, saddled horses on their Oklahoma ranch and set off alone on a trip of more than two thousand miles to shake hands with their family friend, President Theodore Roosevelt, in New York City.

Now the exploits of the Abernathy boys have been made into a documentary by the University of Oklahoma. Visit the website of The Grand Ride of the Abernathy Boys for more information about this excellent film, which includes some fascinating historical information.

Or read the book about the Abernathys amazing equestrian journeys, published by The Long Riders' Guild Press!

Robin and Louella Hanbury-Tenison have made a film about their journey through Albania, which is being presented at the Cannes Film Festival.  Here is a trailer

A classic adventure by the makers of "King Kong." In 1924, neophyte filmmakers and Long Riders Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack hooked up with journalist and sometime spy Marguerite Harrison and set off to film an adventure. They found excitement, danger and unparalleled drama in the migration of the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia (now Iran). Twice a year, more than 50,000 people and half a million animals surmounted seemingly impossible obstacles to take their herds to pasture.

This, the first film ever made by Long Riders, is now available again.  Click on picture to visit the website of Milestone Films.

Tim Cope is busy preparing a three-part, six-hour documentary entitled "In the Steppes of the Nomads" about his journey from Mongolia to Hungary!  We hope to have a copy of the trailer soon.

In 1889 Cossack Lieutenant Dmitri Peshkov made equestrian history when he rode 5,500 miles from Siberia to the Czar's palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.  This amazing winter-time ride has now become the genesis of the world's first twenty-first century Long Rider film.  Click on picture to learn more about Serko, the inspirational story of Peshkov and his horse.

First he rode 19,000 miles from the bottom of South America to the top of Alaska.  Now the noted independent Russian film maker, Vladimir Fissenko, is busy interviewing the most historically important Long Riders.  Click on picture to read about Vladimir's exciting new Long Rider Films.

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