New doc tells a Texas story with national implications
After premiering at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, The River and the Wall from director Ben Masters opens wide this weekend, and with continued political turmoil, it appears to be as timely as ever. Cinapse got a chance to talk with Ben by phone in advance of opening day.
Cinapse: Tell me a little bit about your earliest memories of the Rio Grande, what it meant to you as a younger person, and how that’s changed as you’ve gotten older.
Ben Masters: Growing up as a kid, I worked on a ranch near Bracketville, which is kind of close to Del Rio. We were down on the border, and I had a lot of good life experiences there. Then in college, on and off for about five years, in my early twenties, I worked on a ranch, just east of Laredo. I really like the border. Some of my favorite memories have been along the border, like a lot of Texans. Big Bend National Park is kind of our biggest public land, so that’s kind of a spot where I have gone to recreate since high school. Love that dearly, and I spent months, maybe years, out in West Texas, along the Rio Grande and Big Bend. It’s an amazing part of the state. The Rio Grande has been a part of the most impactful periods of my life.
CN: Would you say that this is sort of the movie maker finding a subject close to his heart, or is this a person that loves the border as you’ve professed, who then thought making a movie was the best way to tell the story?
BM: I think it’s a combination of both. I’m a filmmaker, that’s what I do for a living. My company is Fin & Fur Films, we make nature-driven conservation films, primarily short films. Wildlife and wildlife habitat is my passion in life. For me, The River and the Wall kind of started a little bit selfishly, where I wanted to go and see this river and see these landscapes that have meant a lot to me in my life before a border wall was constructed through them. So I guess it started as kind of a selfish passion project. I wanted to go and have this experience, and go to the border and see it before it’s potentially changed forever. As a filmmaker, I also decided to make a film about it. It’s not like I’m a feature-length documentary filmmaker that thought this was a good idea. This was something that was near and dear to my heart; I felt a movie could be a good tool to let people see the border that I know. Obviously, we’re living in a time when the border wall is front and center of news and social consciousness and things like that.
CN: You talked about how advocacy is a part of what you do. Does this film get made if we have a different president?
BM: The film would not have been made had it not been the president’s campaign and desire to build a border wall. That’s definitely the emphasis of why this got started.
CN: Tell me what your expectations are for the film going forward?
BM: I hope that people who watch it see the border as a place that’s much more than an extendable black line on a map that could just be walled off. The wall is going on the U.S. side of the border, of the Rio Grande, and I hope that people watch the movie and get a glimpse of some of the root issues of this topic that are often so oversimplified. I hope the film makes people realize that there’s a lot of really good people and beautiful stuff that happens on the border. It’s not just this place where there’s controversy and polarization, but there’s going to be a lot of very negative consequences to a physical border wall. We gave a voice to Republicans and conservatives in the film that show alternatives to an actual, physical structure. That’s what I hope people walk away from it with.
The River and the Wall screens Saturday May 4th at 3:30 at AFS Cinema. For more screenings visit https://theriverandthewall.com/screenings.
