How a cowboy from South Dakota and a filmmaker from Beijing came together on the critically acclaimed indie 'The Rider'

Born in Beijing in 1983, filmmaker Chloe Zhao wasn't exposed to any American movies until the mid-1990s, when China began to open itself up to the West. Once she was, she quickly became entranced. "When Western culture came in, it was like a tsunami because we'd been closed off for so long," Zhao says, rattling off the titles of films she remembers seeing: "True Lies," "Sister Act," "Aliens," "Indecent Proposal," "Pretty Woman."

Growing up in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota Reservation, Brady Jandreau didn't give a whole lot of thought to movies. Living out on the windswept plains, he spent most of his childhood around horses. He was placed on a horse for the first time when he was just 15 months old; by 12, he was training wild horses,