‘Gaucho del Norte’ will screen at the Sun Valley Opera House, Friday
BY SUN STAFF
Andrés Caballero, a journalist and filmmaker, brought his film, “Gaucho del Norte,” to the Sun Valley Film Festival earlier this year, but to have it be shown during the Trailing of the Sheep Festival is even more rewarding.
“I wanted to do a documentary about immigration that was different from most we were seeing, which were important, but it was a time when people seemed numb and lethargic about immigration reform,” Caballero said. “I happened to be translating for the immigration interview of a Chilean sheepherder and his now American wife. He told me he was a sheepherder and I was immediately intrigued. I had no idea this primitive lifestyle still existed and that the workers who were keeping the industry alive were specifically recruited from Latin America.”
The documentary, co-directed by Sofian Khan, follows Eraldo Pacheco, a thoughtful Chilean who leaves home to work 6,000 miles away in rural Idaho. The documentary addresses the imbalance in the hardship of Pacheco’s choices with Idaho’s impressive natural beauty and painterly cinematic images. Both filmmakers will be at the screening, as will Robert and Blake Ball, sheep ranchers from Hamer, Idaho.
It’s all in the synergy. Sheepherders who take contracts at U.S. ranches must work in far-off locations for at least three years, Caballero said. They do this for the money, which exceeds anything they could accumulate at home. When they return to their home countries, they hope to invest it for their families.
In the meantime, the “U.S. sheep industry is also highly dependent on their skills and willingness to work for the offered wage in order to continue their businesses,” Caballero said.
The filming of the documentary was interesting for the New York City-based filmmakers.
“There were moments when we would get a glimpse of how difficult sheepherding can be,” Caballero said. “It’s a romantic, but also dark and lonely, environment. We parachuted in and out during our handful-plus of shoots, but our main characters were constantly there, roughing it and missing their families.
“On one of our first nights inside a small trailer in the middle of the desert near the Teton Mountains during the winter, three of us among the crew would take turns to keep the fire going in the middle of the night,” Caballero continued. “It was below freezing outside. In the middle of the night we woke up to the trailer full of smoke and little visibility. The chimney was clogged up with ice and the windows or door wouldn’t open. There was a brief moment of panic, but the door finally opened and we immediately fled for oxygen. The sheepherder was laughing at us the next morning.”
The documentary will screen during the Sheep Tales Gathering, 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 12 at the Sun Valley Opera House. Also screening at the ticketed evening will be the short documentary, “Sheepherders with Cell Phones,” with filmmaker Carolyn Dufurrena. For more information and the link to tickets, visit trailingofthesheep.org.
