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As Mick Jagger repeatedly declares in a famous 1971 Rolling Stones song, “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.” And for filmmaker Ashley Avis, she could not be dragged away from chronicling the plight of wild horses in her award-winning documentary Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West.

It’s an issue for which awareness is rapidly growing — because of her documentary, the newly created nonprofit Wild Beauty Foundation, and a nationwide effort to get Congress to pass legislation to save wild horses and burros.

The film graphically illustrates how the beautiful animals are callously rounded up by contractors hired by the Bureau of Land Management to cull them from grazing on federal lands in a host of Western states including Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Wyoming.

Avis and her team, including producing partner and husband Edward Winters, her brother Richard Avis, their small camera team and sometimes even her parents...

Winterstone Pictures has secured the rights to “The Dark Between Stars” and “Love Her Wild,” by the bestselling author Atticus, who is also known as the world’s most “mysterious poet.”

Ashley Avis, director of Disney’s “Black Beauty” and the upcoming film “City of Angels” for Warner Bros., is set to write, direct and produce under her own banner. The feature film will draw inspiration from the true story of the enigmatic author, who chose to remain anonymous after the death of a close friend. There’s plenty of speculation about Atticus’s identity, and his work has garnered a massive, as well as intensely loyal, social media following.

“The Dark Between Stars” will explore the journey of a young man who flees California following the loss of his mentor and friend. He finds himself drawn to Paris, where he begins to write poetry under the pseudonym of “Atticus.

Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West is a new documentary film from the critically acclaimed Ashley Avis (Disney+’s Black Beauty) and continues her exploration of the American West and the lives and experiences of horses throughout it. With gorgeous cinematography accompanied by surprisingly gripping and suspenseful investigative journalism, Wild Beauty explores the political and economic institutions with special interests that have led to the gradual decline in the population of wild horses. The synopsis reads as follows:

Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West is an immersive journey into the world of wild horses, Wild Beauty Mustang Spirit of the West illuminates both the profound beauty and desperate plight currently faced by the wild horses in the Western United States. Fast disappearing and on a path toward eradication, wild horses in America are caught in a divisive battle over land and special interests. Rounded up by helicopters, losing their natural habitat,...

The growing amount of homeless, independently made documentaries has made film festivals like Hot Docs, arguably more important than ever before. Many docus that premiered at Sundance 2023 but have yet to find distribution are part of the Toronto-based documentary festival’s lineup, which in turn allows those titles to stay on buyers’ radars.

But corporate consolidation, along with streamers’ current mandate for nonfiction content that fits into one of three boxes – celebrity, true crime, or sports – means that many docu filmmakers will eventually have to turn to non-traditional distribution to get their films seen outside the fest circuit.

Tracy Droz Tragos’ docu “Plan C” follows a grassroots organization fighting to expand access to abortion pills across the United States. The timely film premiered at Sundance in January, but despite good reviews, Tragos hasn’t found distribution for “Plan C.”

“We are hearing things from the big buyers like, ‘The subject matter is hugely important,...