"How many are left? 300? Very few!"
“I’ve recommended the film to all our affiliate associations. It’s worth it.”
– Victoria Tollman | Equus Survival Trust Executive Director
Leading US organization dedicated to endangered horses.
“A film full of sensations where even the silences speak”
– Faro de Vigo
“Wild cinema with indomitable characters”
– Radio 3
ABOUT THE FILM
You know the eight seconds. The buzzer. The rush. Now, forget all that.
No chute. No rope. Just bare hands against a wild horse, and a mountain that doesn't care who wins.
This is the Rapa das Bestas — one of the most ancestral forms of bareback riding still practiced today. Once a year, in the mountains of Galicia, Spain, the people of a small village called Sabucedo run barehanded into a herd of wild horses. For centuries, this heritage has forged the community the same way rodeo defined the American West.
But today, the number of wild horses falls dramatically and with it the way of life built around them. As the horses disappear from the mountain, so do the people of Sabucedo — afraid of losing what brings them together.
OUR MISSION
We spent seven years making this film to raise global awareness of the grave danger facing Galicia's wild horses.
To share one of the oldest forms of rodeo still alive today: the Rapa das Bestas.
To tell the story of an ancient, intimate bond between humans and wild horses.
To stand for the right of these horses to remain wild, free, and untamed.
To invite the rodeo world to look at its own roots — and discover how far back they may go.
Ultimately, to support the Rapa Association in its fight to protect these horses for generations to come.
Your donation will be shared with them.
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The director
Wild horses have been bringing people together for centuries, forging the identity of cultures. This is something universal — it happened everywhere, and today, on a global scale, new times are pushing it to the limit.
The Rapa das Bestas is something atavistic and ancestral, like the very presence of horses in Galicia itself. This bareback tradition is as old as the mountains where it's practiced, and possibly an unknown root of what would later become American western heritage.
Today, the population of these wild horses is decreasing dangerously, harassed by cattle thieves, by wolves and now by multinational power companies. The conflicts of the horses become then the conflicts of the community. My goal in making this documentary is to transport the audience into the feelings of this unique bond between humans, wild horses, and nature — a story of western values, told in defense of these magnificent animals.
