The next movie to be presented by the Vernon Film Society is the heart-warming documentary Dark Horse.
This highly acclaimed winner of the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival as well as Best Documentary at the British Independent Film Awards is a story of dreams, determination and class consciousness in the world of horse racing.
Director Louise Osmond describes the movie as “Rocky... with a horse.”
Set in the former mining area of Cefn Fforest, Caerphilly, South Wales, where people are having a hard time surviving and have very little to look forward to, middle-aged grocery store cleaner and part-time barmaid Jan Vokes persuades a syndicate of friends to pool their small resources to breed and train a racehorse.
From its modest beginnings, living on an allotment (small community garden) to being taken on by a trainer, Dream Alliance, as the horse is named, begins an improbable journey through the world of horse racing.
Class consciousness is a theme throughout the movie. Usually, horse owners are wealthy and here they contrast with the down-to-earth working folks who put their heart and soul into this venture.
Improbably, Dream Alliance goes on to a successful racing career and you cannot help but cheer it and its owners on as the film progresses.
This is bound to be a crowd pleaser for all those who have impossible dreams and dare to follow them.
“With its sheer warmth and likeability, this good-natured documentary won my heart – a real-life The Full Monty or Billy Elliot or Pride,” reads a review in The Guardian (U.K.).
The film screens at the Towne Cinema Monday at 5:15 and 7:45 p.m. All tickets are $7 (cash only). at the theatre box office and the Bean Scene.