GAUCHOS: If you don't get on, you won't fall off

Dir: Jana Richter
Documentary, HDV, 85 min, Germany
Website: http://www.richterproduction.de/Gauchos/index.html

Synopsis

Gauchos: If you don’t get on, you won’t fall off is a film about people who live life through risk. Men who always get back on, no matter how often they will fall off. Gauchos find their luck on the back of a horse. For them, freedom means to ride off not knowing what they will eat, where they will sleep or when they will come back.

Some people believe that the South American cowboy has died out; that fences, stables, and machines have replaced him. But somebody who loves what he does will not give it up that easily.

The gaucho has indeed survived and is still living today. He has adapted himself to the modern world and may have to work additionally in a slaughterhouse, an office or as a nurse, but he is by no means less of a gaucho.

To be a gaucho is a passion. It is passed on from father to son, or daughter. You have to learn to be a gaucho but there are no schools which teach it. Here in the Argentinean mountains, the horse is the teacher and shows the human being the most important things in life. It demands of its rider patience, endurance, stamina, perseverance, intelligence and the talent of improvisation. And in return it offers faith, trust, obedience, strength and energy.

To ride and to be a good rider means to hold your body in balance. If the body is in balance, your soul is in balance too. That is the moment where you can reach whatever you want. You just have to get on and not be afraid to fall off.