Bucking Tradition

Runtime: 8m, 49s
Directed by: Sharon M Boeckle
Country of Origin: USA

Bucking Tradition explores one of America’s most iconic competitions—the rodeo. With thousands of events held across the nation and around the world every year, this “sport” is hailed by some as one of the last traditions of the American West. By others, it’s decried as one of our nation’s last legalized forms of systematic and brutal animal cruelty masquerading as sport and family entertainment. Do some traditions deserve to die? Maybe they do.

Sharon Boeckle’s filmmaking experience includes the documentary film Vendemmia, which explores the Cinque Terre’s struggle for sustainable tourism; and the award-winning documentary From the Kill Pen, which explores the controversy over legalized horse slaughter in the United States. As a writer, Sharon has written multiple screenplays, including The Single Chick’s Guide to Italy, which has recently been adapted into a novel. Her videography and photography experience includes clients in the travel industry here in the United States, and a number of companies in the winemaking and travel industry in Italy. It was after viewing From the Kill Pen that Eric Mills, of Action for Animals, reached out to Sharon and suggested the idea of a documentary exposing the cruelties of the rodeo. The offer was pure kismet; while working on From the Kill Pen Sharon had interviewed and worked with multiple individuals fighting against the rodeo industry, especially as a direct route to the horse slaughter pipeline, but the choice to include specifics on the rodeo was abandoned in post-production editing. Now, Sharon knows why—the rodeo deserves an entire film of its own.