By Oliver Winn
An award-winning film about the connection between damaged ex-racehorses and veterans with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is showing at the Warburton Arts Centre on Friday 21 March.
Directed by Nick Barkla, The Healing follows ex-mounted policeman Scott Brodie, who has been getting veterans to help him retrain ex-thoroughbred racehorses so they can recover from their injuries and trauma they’ve suffered.
“He had started getting traumatised military veterans to help him retrain the horses, and in helping retrain them, the veterans have had some incredible breakthroughs in their mental health,” Mr Barkla said.
What started as a quick five day filming session to help Mr Brodie promote his horse retraining course, turned into a four year journey for Mr Barkla as he followed these veterans and their horses.
“Over the four years, you see the veterans go through some very, really profound, positive change,” Mr Barkla said.
Mr Barkla encouraged people to attend the screening at Warburton Arts Centre on Friday 21 March, where a Q and A will take place after the film.
“I love seeing the audience interactions of the film, it’s a really positive one,” he said.
Equine therapist Kim Wren said while the film doesn’t necessarily portray equine therapy, the connection between humans and horses is one of “mutual healing” and it undoubtedly has the potential to help veterans.
“One thing with working with horses is they can be a mirror to how you’re feeling,” Ms Wren said.
“So the vets… are building trust with those horses, getting those horses into a safe space.”
“When the vets can get that beautiful connection with the horse, they can both then trust each other and actually relax.”
When filming, the health of the veterans and horses were top priority, so Mr Barkla adopted a “fly on the wall approach” to directing.
Using intimate, heavily visual cinematography with little dialogue, Mr Barkla aimed to highlight the importance of body language communication between humans and horses.
“There is something about the human beings’ relationship with horses that’s like primal, you know, it goes back thousands of years,” Mr Barkla said.
“So there is a lot happening in there that is probably in some ways hard to articulate, it’s probably easier in many ways to see it on screen than it is to even describe it.”
On the first day of the course, the veterans were put in a round yard with a powerful yet flighty horse, forcing the veterans to focus on the animal completely.
Mr Barkla said it rooted them in the present and gave them something to invest their energy into.
“They’re not thinking about their problems, they’re not thinking about how they’ll pay their bills, or where they’ll sleep or how they will reform relationships with their kids or whatever.”
“For the veterans, it was the first time in a long time where they felt unselfconscious, and they started to find some freedom in that.”
