There are some 64,000 wild horses operating free on public lands within the Western United States. Nevertheless, these horses, and the 28 million protected acres on which they roam, are more and more below risk from private and non-private pursuits in search of to cut back their numbers in favour of livestock. The Destiny of the Wild tracks the life and activism of Laura Leigh, who has devoted herself to combating to guard the nation’s wild horse inhabitants. By interviews with Leigh and aerial footage of the helicopter roundups that drive the horses off the land and into into lifelong confinement, the US filmmaker Andrew Michael Ellis attracts parallels with Leigh’s personal expertise of home abuse and homelessness. The ensuing movie celebrates her resourcefulness and grit, in addition to the magnificent sight she’s fought so laborious to guard: of horse herds operating by means of large open lands.
