Sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Leigh Dunston
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In a breathtaking journey across four continents, three extraordinary people practice the ancient art of hunting with birds to connect with the natural world and feed their inner wild. (This film contains images of birds hunting and consuming prey.)
SYNOPSIS
From award-winning filmmakers Elisabeth Haviland James (The Loving Story, Althea) and Revere La Noue comes The Falconbridge Collection’s feature documentary, Overland, an intimate and epic portrait of three ancient souls. The heroes of Overland bond with birds of prey, much in the same way it has been done for 6000 years, in a world where the wilderness they depend on, and the lifestyle they cling to, are threatened on all sides.
Overland explores our connection to the wild that is fading out of sight and out of mind. Following the extraordinary quests of three falconers, it is a stunning cinematic journey across four continents that twists and turns like nature itself, bridging ancient to modern, east to west, and earth to sky. Lauren, a daredevil anthropologist, travels the world collecting ancient falconry secrets, building her skills to train injured eagles to fly and hunt again. But when she encounters a confused eagle whose tragic past with humans seems beyond repair, doubt creeps in and she begins to question everything she thought she knew. Meanwhile, Giovanni, a modern-day Renaissance man, has given up the bustle of Rome for a solitary life with his wolves, horse and hawks on a tiny countryside farm. When a transcendent experience with an 800-year-old falconry book forces him to rethink his purpose - and the menace of the “digital cage” - he realizes he must make a change. Far away in Dubai, Khalifa is training to be the world’s best falcon racer. For thousands of years his nomadic ancestors hunted with the falcon to feed their tribe in the harsh Arabian desert. Now that cars have replaced camels and international development has engulfed Dubai, Khalifa must find a way to keep the fragile culture of his Bedouin forefathers alive, because he knows once they are gone...they are gone forever.
As the movie unfolds in the wilds of the American Midwest, Italy, the Holy See, Scotland, Mongolia, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa, the epic journeys of Lauren, Giovanni, and Khalifa are interwoven into a stirring story that asks how we can stay connected to our natural, primal spirit, even when modern society threatens to erase it.
Filmmaker Statement:
Six years ago, when Revere and I began making this film, the world was a different place. I didn’t know that over the course of our production the act of telling a global story would start to feel political. I wasn’t considering the fragility of our relationships across borders and I couldn’t have imagined the degree of pessimism and division that would come to riddle us. But from the outset I knew that we could craft a film around a passion for birds of prey that shined a light on our shared humanity, and I suspected that in the 6000 year-old tradition of falconry, and the code of ethics that surround it, there would be universal human themes to uncover. The fears that bubble to the surface in Overland echo all around us—we are living in an era where nature is disappearing, the virtual world is overtaking the organic world, the food-chain is invisible, and as a result we’re becoming disconnected from the very primal instincts that make us human and allow us to survive.
When Lauren McGough, Giovanni Granati and Khalifa Bin Mujren agreed to allow us into their lives, they entrusted us with great responsibility to tell an honest story of their radical pursuits with vision and artistry. We decided to forego the on-camera interview, in favor of often hours-long recorded conversations with each of them, which were then culled in the edit room until clear themes emerged. Family. Conservation. History and heritage. Life and death. Connectivity and distance. We trekked with our small-but-mighty crew up sand dunes, over great plains, through dense woods, and to the top of craggy mountains to capture their stories, to share their insights, and to document primal, elemental moments. As we spent time embedded with Lauren, Khalifa and Giovanni in the UAE, Azerbaijan, Italy, Scotland, the American Midwest and South Africa, I realized that much of what I admire about them is found in the careful balance of “modern reality” and “primal instinct” that they each achieve in their unique way. When they are in pursuit of what they love to do, it elevates all of us out of the quagmire; it allows for freedom of emotion and an experience of the natural world that we are losing. They force us to ask ourselves, “what is my falcon?”
It is my hope that after watching the film great debates erupt because the characters, themes and stories resonate on a deeply personal, individual level. We, the filmmakers, have done half of the job by making the film, but we are counting on the audience to do the other half by bringing their own perspective to bear as they watch. If we want to live in a better world it is urgent and essential to reinvigorate our connection with the wild - the mindset and the place - and to exchange stories that transcend nationality, race, gender and religion, and spark real dialog. Juxtaposed with the current rhetoric about building walls, debate over the sanctity of the environment, divisive politics, xenophobia and the profound effects of “nature deficit disorder,” Overland offers an alternative. It is hopeful, it is thoughtful, it is magical, it bucks convention, and it has room for a diversity of opinions - all wrapped up in a beautiful global adventure. I’m very proud of the film that Revere and I created, and I would love for it to contribute to the conservation of both species and land in fragile environments around the world.
- Elisabeth Haviland James, Director, Producer, Editor
I became interested in making Overland because I was fascinated by falconry, this ancient tradition of hunting with birds of prey that has been practiced throughout history and is still going on all around the world, and of course I was mesmerized by the birds. I had so many questions about the bond between the human and the bird, starting with why it didn’t just fly off every time.
These birds have been around for millions of years, unchanged by humans, never domesticated. I like to say, “civilizations rise and fall, while the raptor watches from the sky.” That was true for the last 200,000 years but now it seems the raptor will rise or fall depending on the benevolence and wisdom of our civilization.
As we waded deeper into the production of the film, I consulted the work of the great naturalist thinkers and was especially moved by a conversation with the esteemed E.O. Wilson. As we were discussing the dilemma of framing out, or shooting around, man-made “eyesores” he said adamantly, “we don’t need to see more smokestacks, everybody knows what that looks like. Show the wild that is left and what the future could look like if we let it grow back.”
This was not easy. If you play around with the zoom function on google earth and try to find a square inch without roads, power lines, or plowed fields - you’ll find it’s nearly impossible. It became a mission to film in pristine locations and to control our vistas so that we could allow for the experience of these landscapes in a timeless way. The drone was an amazing creative storytelling tool. With thoughtfully planned flight routes we could reveal dynamic compositions of open, borderless realms that had never been seen before. Amazingly, the birds of Overland never seemed to mind the drone - maybe they thought it was too slow to be a threat or not tasty enough to eat.
My hope is that we begin to consider the benefits of letting more places return to their wild state. The grassy plains where Miles fails to catch a jack rabbit are part of a restorative prairie project. All of the wondrous creatures you see in the Africa scenes are roaming on lands that were being plowed for farming only 10 years ago. Just by leaving the land alone, the plants grew back and the animals returned. Warthogs, mongooses, and my personal favorite - the giant black and tan oryx with its twisted dark horns. In my “wildest” imagination, I wonder what it would be like if we could connect little strips of wild along the farms in the Midwest to state and national parks all the way from one ocean to the other ocean, creating a “wildway.” A man can dream.
I learned so much spending time with Giovanni, Lauren, and Khalifa and their animals. Giovanni caught me with a zinger one day. “Revere, virtual reality is when your mind is some place that your body isn’t, phones, traffic, sleeping, movies!” he told me. “Yikes” I thought. It is true, when you have a falcon on your hand you are extremely present. Lauren helped me wrap my head around the big idea of just how small we are in the span of time. The eagle is the sum total of millions of years of evolution, yet somehow we got the keys to the kingdom? I was also shocked to find out that her favorite show was RuPaul’s Drag Race. My experience spending time with Khalifa helped me understand the urgent need to replace stereotypes with nuance. Our advisors cautioned us about the extensive cultural differences we would encounter in the UAE and that an American documentary crew would not be a familiar sight. The access Khalifa gave us to his home, his family, and his falcons is unprecedented in every way. I am thrilled to share this story so that people can experience some of the kindness and graciousness we experienced as filmmakers. Lauren, Khalifa, and Giovanni were not paid to be in this movie, every moment they spent with us was a gift we pass to our audiences.
Overland is a place of openness. For some it is a story about family, for others it is about life and death, and for others it is all about the birds. I suppose for me, it is about common ground, borderless-ness, and the need to wake the wild in ourselves if we are going to protect the wild on this earth. I really hope Overland can help inch us along that path. - Revere La Noue, Director, Producer, Editor
Filmmaker bio:
Elisabeth Haviland James (Director, Producer, Editor) is a passionate documentary storyteller and a Peabody and Emmy winning filmmaker (The Loving Story, Althea, In So Many Words) whose work has screened theatrically, on television and in museums; her work includes historical, cinema verité, environmental and experimental films. Overland is the second documentary feature film she has directed and produced. From the jungles of Central Africa to dusty basement archives, she loves the challenge of capturing the heart of a story. She approached the stories in Overland with the belief that broadening our understanding of each other cultivates peace, and was hooked by the opportunity to tell a “pangaeaic” story about relationships - to each other, to animals and to our planet.
James was recently commissioned by the Morehead Planetarium at the University of North Carolina to write and curate a full-dome production about the American South, which premiered in October 2019. James was named one of two film fellows in the state by the North Carolina Arts Council in 2015. She is currently editing a feature documentary about 19th century photographer Eadweard Muybridge, and in development on several international projects. James has taught documentary filmmaking at Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies and as an artist in residence at the Oklahoma Arts Institute; she has also served as a guest lecturer for the State Department in Central Asia. She is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the MA program in Documentary Film at Stanford University. She is an active member of the Documentary Producer’s Alliance.
Revere La Noue (Director, Producer, Editor) is an artist and filmmaker working on a wide array of projects all over the world. Over the past two decades he has had the privilege of working on feature and short format documentaries ranging in topic from woodpeckers to opera to college football. For his first feature documentary Revere and his partner Elisabeth Haviland James navigated four continents, three languages, and a myriad of creatures and wildernesses to create Overland. As a visual artist, Revere has been collaborating and innovating on diverse multi-media projects including a large canvas print of wild horses that wrapped a city block, an experimental photography exhibit at the Ford Presidential Museum, and a number of solo exhibitions of abstract paintings and other mixed-media works with themes including modern dance, architecture, and military history. He believes in the interconnectedness of all forms of art and that his experiences as a collegiate athlete helps him in the team sport of filmmaking. He discovered his love for birds of prey as a teenager volunteering at a raptor rehabilitation facility at an urban wilderness park in Baltimore City. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and received a Master’s in Documentary Film from Stanford University.
These events are made possible through the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, a South Arts program. The program is made possible through a partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
