Karin is a sage elderly woman who lives a solitary life above the Nicasio Reservoir in California with a herd of Danish Warmbloods. When she suffers a catastrophic break from reality, she looks to her horses for help.

Interview with Directors/Producers Mimi Wilcox and Victor Tadashi Suarez

Watch Alpha Mare here:

Congratulations! Why did you make your film?

We began this project after meeting Karin as guests at her Airbnb. It didn’t take us long to recognize that she was a fascinating person with a story to tell. We made plans with her a year later to spend a few days filming together, and it wasn’t until we were interviewing her that we learned the details of her story and just how unusual and important her relationship with her horses is to her way of being.

Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?

For one thing, it’s a beautiful film about horses! But even if you don’t like horses, what really makes this film unique is the way we enter into Karin’s mind, to visually tell her story as she tells it: a blend of reality and fantasy, of past and present. The result is a story told like a dream.

How do personal and universal themes work in your film?

Something we wanted to be very cognizant of while putting Alpha Mare together was to share Karin’s personal story of mental health in a powerful way, but without being prescriptive. We set out to tell a universal story about self-acceptance and finding incredible strength in your passions.

How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?

While shooting Alpha Mare in the field, we weren’t entirely sure what story we wanted to tell. We stayed very open in our time with Karin and listened to what she had to tell us so that we could tell a story that felt honest about her experience. The arc of the film only became clear over the course of the edit, when we realized that the story was simply about Karin learning to love herself.

What type of feedback have you received so far?

Some of the best feedback has been hearing from people with a connection to mental illness and hearing that they appreciate the portrayal of mental health challenges as one part of Karin’s story, rather than the defining feature of her life.

But for us, the feedback that we appreciated most was hearing from the people closest to Karin. To hear that they felt the film captured an honest portrait of Karin and that they liked the film! That really means a lot.

Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?

People love horses! The film elicits a lot of stories from friends and strangers about their own experiences with horses in a way that we were not expecting, which we love. We’ve learned so much from listening to our audiences who bring these specific passions to the film and get something out of it that we didn’t even realize was there.

What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?

We really hope that the film helps people feel transported into this particular place with this particular person. Our time spent with Karin was so magical, and we wanted to capture that sense of beauty and surreality with Alpha Mare. We are having a really wonderful time touring with the film and hope to keep sharing it with audiences after we wrap up its festival run at the end of 2019.

What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?

Karin spent a large chunk of her life trying to live up to someone else’s idea of who she should be. And it took her a long time to find her own path to accepting her true self. What does it take to find your true self? And how long is the road to self-acceptance?

Would you like to add anything else?

We were so lucky to work with some incredibly talented people on this film. Our wonderful composer, Surya Giri; the amazing folks at Berkeley Sound Artists who did all of the sound design and mix for the film (even going to Karin’s home to record all the right horse sounds!) - Bijan Sharifi and Jim LeBrecht; and Kath Raisch at Company 3, who did the absolutely beautiful color grade for the film.

What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?

We have a new project in production through Tienda Films called The Sebastopol Siege. It’s another documentary short, but it’s a very different film from Alpha Mare. Here's the logline: "An exploration of family lore and memory told through the night of March 2nd, 1973, when Michaela Madden was held hostage for eight hours in her Northern California home - and was subsequently vilified by her community."

We'd love for you to connect with us to stay posted on our projects -

Instagram: @tiendafilms

Facebook: facebook.com/tiendafilms

or feel free to reach out at hello@tiendafilms.com.

We'd also like to give a shoutout to our amazing composer Surya Giri, who (when he isn't composing music for film) runs a luxury womenswear brand with his mother: www.sgbgatelier.com

Interview: May 2019

We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela

Alpha Mare

Length: 9:52

Director: Mimi Wilcox & Victor Tadashi Suarez

Producer: Victor Tadashi Suarez & Mimi Wilcox

About the writer, director and producer:

VICTOR TADASHI SUAREZ is an eight-time Emmy-nominated documentary cinematographer based in Chicago. He has DP'd over forty documentary films for PBS Frontline, National Geographic, and Al Jazeera. He is currently the DP for the new tv series from the New York Times, The Weekly.

MIMI WILCOX is a Chicago-based documentary editor & filmmaker. After honing her skills with documentary powerhouse Kartemquin Films, her work has gone on to screen at the Cleveland International Film Festival and Newport Beach Film Festival and has been broadcast around the world.

Key cast: Karin Dilou (participant)

Facebook: Tienda

Instagram: @tiendafilms

Hashtags used: #AlphaMare

Website: www.tiendafilms.com

Other: IMDb, Vimeo

Made in association with: Tienda Films

Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Bentonville Film Festival / Bentonville, Arkansas - May 9th, 2019; Doc Films Festival / Chicago, Illinois - May 25th, 2019