(L-R) Clay Pateneaude, Tabatha Zimiga, Porshia Zimiga, director Kate Beecroft, Leanna Shumpert, Jesse Thorson, and Jennifer Ehle attend the premiere of “East of Wall” at The Ray Theater in Park City. (Photo by Robin Marshall/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
By Jordan Crucchiola
When Senior Manager of Programming Adam Montgomery introduces East of Wall at The Ray Theatre on morning number two of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, he lets the audience know, “You’re about to be introduced to some of the most badass women who’ve ever been put to film.” Then writer-director Kate Beecroft approaches the podium for a brief introduction.
“So, five years ago I met a woman in South Dakota who said, ‘If you want a real story, head east of Wall, and there is a woman named Tabatha waiting for you,’” Beecroft explains to the crowd. “I don’t think that any of us, in our wildest dreams, could have ever imagined that all of this would have been waiting for us as well. So, thank you, Sundance, and thank you, Tabatha.”
The woman Beecroft was guided to is Tabatha Zimiga, who today is sitting in the center of a theater in Park City, but who spends the rest of her days just beyond the Badlands of South Dakota on a modest horse ranch that she owns. Zimiga sits in the audience waiting to watch the part-narrative, part-nonfiction portrayal of her life for the very first time, and her signature side-shave hairstyle appears freshly touched up for the occasion. She looks just as she appears on screen in East of Wall because Beecroft’s film is inspired by Zimiga’s real life: training horses for sale while looking after a community of young kids — some her own by birth, most not — who look to her as the anchoring force in their lives.
Zimiga uses her own name in East of Wall, along with her daughter, Porshia Zimiga, and the rest of the teenagers who call the ranch home. They are joined by actors Jennifer Ehle, who plays Tabatha’s leather-tough mother (based on her actual mom, Tracey), and Scoot McNairy in the role of a wealthy rancher who brings his ostentatious six-door truck and luxurious horse trailer up to South Dakota from Texas, looking for new business opportunities. While McNairy’s character becomes enchanted by Zimiga’s life under the vast sky of Great Plains country, the audience feels what pulled Beecroft to this place and this family so many years ago. Cinematographer Austin Shelton makes this ranch, on the periphery of a town that’s already on the periphery of America, look like an Elysian dream when it’s bathed in the golden light of sundown.
When the credits finish rolling, Beecroft moves to the front of the auditorium, along with her cast. The crowd gives a standing ovation as Tabatha wipes away streaming tears. “I didn’t expect that, but it was truly profound,” she says, seeming to search for more words. “I loved it.” Her family echoes the sentiment. “I love this movie,” says Leanna Shumpert, the youngest in attendance. “It was very heartwarming, and I love you, Kate, very much for recognizing all of us.” Family members Jesse Thorson and Clay Pateneaude both express their love of the final film, and Porshia, the movie’s spitfire young star alongside her mom, beams through braces with her face half obscured by a black cowboy hat. As she shuffles her feet, you can hear the jingling of spurs fixed to her worn-in boots.
The story of chosen family in East of Wall feels so rich and lived in, likely because Beecroft herself came to be one of their own on the Zimiga ranch. The filmmaker says she lived with the family near Wall for three years, filming untold hours of footage with just Shelton. Once they were able to secure producers to help finish the project as a feature with more resources, Beecroft finally introduced a narrativized script. The film itself was shot in 24 days, but selections from Beecroft and Shelton’s footage trove are wound throughout the film. In Boyhood-esque fashion, flashback scenes feature moments captured in real time, sometimes years prior to the proper feature shoot.
The audience is visibly moved by what they have just experienced. Almost every question is prefaced with gratitude and adoration for the cast. One man asks how he can buy a horse and support the ranch; Tabatha asks what kind of horse he needs. Another woman, a South Dakota native, is overcome with emotion while thanking Zimiga and company for showing a slice of American life that few people are curious enough to learn more about. “To me this was kind of a love letter to a place I think a lot of us find a really difficult place to want to be, but find impossible to leave,” the woman says, pushing through as she gets choked up. “It was incredibly beautiful for those of us that call this our home, a place that can sometimes be really unforgivable.”
Beecroft maintains a deeply close friendship with Tabatha, knowing that her closeness with the Zimigas prevented her from the distance necessary to make a true documentary. Tabatha and her collective also felt more comfortable when there was a layer of fiction set over their vulnerable truths, all of which combined to make an innovative storytelling approach that fits perfectly in the NEXT lineup.
When asked how the ranch is doing, Tabatha says they’re still up and running, still have a lot of horses to sell, and are still “doing cowboy shit.”
