A Sundance-awarded film about a real-life Argentine cowboy community, elevated by sublime monochrome cinematography and sweeping western-inspired imagery.

In the Calchaquí Valleys of north-west Argentina, an isolated community is built on the rituals of the gaucho. From five-year-old Jony and 83-year-old Lelo to 17-year-old Guada, the young woman bucking the macho tradition of the rodeo, everyone in town is tied to these customs, which are manifestations not just of cultural heritage but of the profound connection between humans and their environment. As the world continues to modernise, however, will the gaucho become a mere relic of a bygone era?

Awarded the Special Jury Award for Sound in Sundance’s US Documentary section and shot in striking black-and-white by director/cinematographers Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, this observational documentary is a glorious paean to widescreen imagery. As with their earlier The Truffle Hunters, a delightful account of Italian villagers and their dogs, there’s both a strong sense of place and a distinctive lyrical flourish in Gaucho Gaucho. The film may be filled with the sights of cinema’s westerns – cowboys, rodeos, cattle farms, wild horses, sweeping vistas of open range and vast mountains – but, at heart, it’s an enthralling true portrait of a people and their threatened way of life.

“The most splendidly photographed movie of this year’s Sundance … Both breathtakingly beautiful and emotionally poignant.” – Harper’s Bazaar