Documentary film-makers spend much of their time looking for suitable subjects. Cindy Meehl, a successful fashion designer, found her subject and became a film-maker so she could tell his story.
One of the best documentaries in last year's film festival, Buck is about Buck Brannaman, who inspired the novel The Horse Whisperer and Robert Redford's film adaptation (on which Brannaman worked as a stunt double and advisor).
To say that it's a film about horses that will captivate people who have no interest in horses is to damn it with faint praise. Buck put me in mind of last year's sleeper hit Bill Cunningham New York, which spun documentary gold from the life of an unlikely and unassuming figure - in that case a society photographer.
Meehl participated in one of Brannaman's horse-training clinics and thought his magic touch with the big animals needed to be shared with a wider audience.
But what she uncovered - and has delivered on screen - is a portrait of an American original, a cowboy philosopher whose unique mix of modesty and confidence makes him an irresistible character. Anyone who has a heart and a soul will thrill to the story told here.
