Screening + Q&A
Ballroom Marfa and the Marfa Book Company presented a screening of the documentary The River and the Wall, followed by a Q&A with executive producer Nancy Sanders, producer Hillary Pierce, and associate producer Katy Baldack. The film follows five friends on an immersive adventure through the unknown wilds of the Texas borderlands as they travel 1,200 miles from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico on horses, mountain bikes, and canoes.
Conservation filmmaker Ben Masters realized the urgency of documenting the last remaining wilderness in Texas as the threat of new border wall construction looms ahead. Masters recruited NatGeo Explorer Filipe DeAndrade, ornithologist Heather Mackey, river guide Austin Alvarado, and conservationist Jay Kleberg to join him on the two-and-a-half-month journey down 1,200 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
They set out to document the borderlands and explored the potential impacts of a wall on the natural environment, but as the wilderness gave way to the more populated and heavily trafficked Lower Rio Grande Valley, they came face-to-face with the human side of the immigration debate and entered uncharted emotional waters.
Trailer
Interview
Listen to Marfa Public Radio’s West Texas Talk interview with filmmaker Ben Masters on KRTS 93.5FM or via their online stream.
Images
Acknowledgments
This program is made possible by the generous support of The Brown Foundation, Inc.; City of Marfa; Humanities Texas; Lebermann Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; Nancy & Rod Sanders; Texas Commission on the Arts; Ballroom Marfa Board of Trustees; and Ballroom Marfa members.
In-kind support provided by Saint Arnolds Brewery, Austin Eastciders.
Special thanks to Katy Baldock, The Crowley Theater, Rob Crowley, Tim Crowley, Tim Johnson, The Marfa Book Company, Ben Masters, Marfa Public Radio, Caitlin Murray, and Hillary Pierce