East of Wall

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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Where is the line between reality and fiction? One has to ask, is “East of Wall” a scripted drama or a staged documentary?

First-time feature filmmaker Kate Beecroft knows the difference. In the film, her subjects are playing versions of themselves. “Yes, this was about their lives, but it was fully scripted.”

As she tells it: “When I was young, I loved writing stories. But I think the message that I got as a young girl was, ‘You like telling stories? Then you should be an actress!’ I didn’t even know it was possible to be a director and a writer until much later in my life.”

Beecroft enrolled in drama school in London, where she quickly discovered the types of people she actually wanted to see on screen. “I witnessed so much talent, people with such raw creativity and dedication but who weren’t getting opportunities because of their look or their lack of connections. And so I started writing roles for those people. For the unique faces and souls that I wanted to see on screen. That’s now become a huge part of my identity as a filmmaker.”

To find people whose stories she wanted to tell, Beecroft moved to the South Dakota Badlands and embedded herself in the community, taking up residency on a ranch located east of the town of Wall (hence the film’s title). The owner was Tabitha Zimiga, a heavily tattooed, recently widowed young horse trainer. Also found on the ranch was Zimiga’s daughter, Porshia, and a group of wayward teenagers who needed a place to stay.

“The second I stepped foot on that ranch and saw their faces, it was as if I had been looking for them my whole life without knowing – there was such a wildness about them in a way I’d never seen before, certainly not on camera.”

The storyline: After the death of her husband, a horse trainer wrestles with financial insecurity and unresolved grief while providing refuge for a group of wayward teenagers.

Why make a film about a loose-knit family on a broken-down ranch in the far reaches of South Dakota? “I think it’s so important to get out of my own comfort zone as a filmmaker and take chances on people who inspire me.”

What kind of people was she looking for? “The family was already cast because I knew I wanted them to play themselves. Still, the remaining roles were cast by spending months scouring the nearby towns — rodeos, grocery stores, local basketball games – trying to find the perfect people.”

“The vast majority of my cast had never acted before or even seen a camera,” she says.

Her biggest challenge was spending five years “wrangling a bunch of feral teenagers” to make the film. “They are wild and very strong-willed, which is why they are spectacular.”

“My biggest takeaway is that there is so much talent in this world. The next Meryl Streep could be at a bus stop in Idaho right now. But they don’t have connections, or don’t see it as a viable path, or whatever host of reasons that they’re undiscovered.”

Who does she want to see her film? “I want people from marginalized corners of the country to see this and feel like their story matters,” she says.

“East of Wall” won The NEXT Audience Award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, which spotlights bold, innovative storytelling, often from emerging filmmakers.

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com