The lives of two young men from the Lakota tribe are full of hope and the unexpected on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Bill is in his twenties and wants to achieve his version of the American Dream by raising poodles; 12-year-old Matho longs to grow up and gain his father’s approval of what the future may hold. A series of impulsive, tenderly comic, and brave decisions will shake up both boys’ lives. They will search for the answer to what it means to be a young man in a time when there are no ideals.

War Pony won the Camera d’Or at Cannes this year. Stripped of all the usual trappings of a coming-of-age story, the film is a portrait of how the new generation of First Nations men in North America feels today. They dream like everyone else and lazily listen to hip-hop in the car. This feature debut by Australian director Gina Gammell and Hollywood actress and Elvis Presley’s granddaughter, Riley Keough, is a straightforward, emotionally sensitive, and universal mirror of this community. Made in close collaboration with the Oglala Lakota community (two members of the tribe co-wrote the screenplay) it captures how deeply the American promise of “a successful life” has also been woven into the lives of indigenous people.