For the better part of 65 years, revisionism has been the modus operandi of most filmmakers staring down the Western genre. This revisionism has produced some of the best Westerns in the long history of the genre, such as The Wild Bunch (1969), Unforgiven (1992), and The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007). These films seek to tell the tales of yore with the necessary bloodshed, complex morality, and general bleakness that the old school of filmmaking tended to ignore (or simply wasn’t allowed to explore, several classics like The Searchers and The Ox-Bow Incident notwithstanding).
A more recent development in the ever-shifting identity of the Western is that of the New Western tales being mostly brought to life by female and indigenous filmmakers. For even though the cowboy way of life of the big screen has diminished, the real people of the American west ride on. This is the reality that filmmaker Kate Beecroft found in South Dakota when she met Tabatha Zimiga and her daughter Porshia Zimiga, two born and bred cowgirls breaking and selling horses on TikTok. After embedding herself in the family and community for three years, and deciding to create a fiction film based on the lives of Tabatha and Porshia (and starring the mother/daughter duo), East of Wall came to life.
Starting off with images of the striking South Dakota badlands interspersed with vertical, self-shot videos of horse-riding and competitions, it’s clear that East of Wall is intent on breaking with tradition in several ways. Tabatha, who saves horses from slaughter and trains them to sell at auctions or through TikTok, barely scrapes by in her ranch, where she lives with her daughter Porshia and mother Tracey (a knockout Jennifer Ehle) as well as her other children and wayward teenagers looking for a home and work. Having recently lost her husband, Tabatha finds herself at odds with Porshia as they both deal with their grief in different and conflicting ways. When a rich rancher (Scoot McNairy) takes notice of Tabatha’s talents and her family’s operation, he makes her an enticing albeit difficult offer that will further test her relationship with her daughter and her lifestyle in general.
An assured feature-length debut from Beecroft, East of Wall is a surprising piece of filmmaking that doesn’t sugarcoat or overtly sentimentalizes the Western way of life. The Zimiga family boldly tell their story by way of Beecroft’s tight script, which adds some fictional flair to further drive home the tectonic shift of the New West taking over the Old West. One of the few professional actors in the film, McNairy imbues the well-meaning but selfish Roy Waters with a sadness that yearns for the crumbling values of old. It’s a tricky character that is neither demonized or treated gently. In other words, a more than human cowboy that only seeks gain when others are merely trying to survive.
The true stars of East of Wall however are Tabatha and Porshia. Both debuting as actresses, they are of course playing themselves in a lightly factionalized account of their lives. But their conflicts, both internal and external, are brought to the screen with such force and confidence that it’s easy to forget we’re watching first-time performers. Beecroft and cinematographer Austin Shelton highlight Tabatha and Porshia’s striking features against the barren landscapes of the Badlands, but they also trust their actresses for some truly vulnerable and emotional scenes that reward the audience with genuine feeling that most fiction films are unable to capture.
East of Wall won the Audience Award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, a more than fitting award for a film that tackles such complex themes with clarity and accessibility. Only since 2022’s Aftersun have we been presented with such a clear vision and deft direction as East of Wall is able to convey. It sits confidently with other New West features such as Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women (2016), Chloé Zhao’s The Rider (2017), and Erica Tremblay’s Fancy Dance (2023), carving its own place with a mother and daughter story that works both as a reflection on grief and the desire to continue a way of life on one’s own terms. As Tabatha herself said at a post-screening Q&A, talking about sharing her life with director Beecroft, “we just showed her some real cowgirl shit”.
