Stray Dog

Directed by Debra Granik

Cinematography by Eric Phillips-Horst / Meerkat Media

Harley-Davidson, leather, tattooed biceps: Ron “Stray Dog” Hall looks like an authentic tough guy. A Vietnam veteran, he runs a trailer park in rural Missouri with his wife, Alicia, who recently emigrated from Mexico. Gradually, a layered image comes into focus of a man struggling to come to terms with his combat experience. When Alicia’s teenage sons arrive, the film reveals a tender portrait of an America outside the mainstream. Stray Dog is a powerful look at the veteran experience, a surprising love story, and a fresh exploration of what it takes to survive in the hardscrabble heartland.

Awards & Screenings

PBS Independent Lens Broadcast

WINNER – Best Documentary Feature – 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival

WINNER – Best Documentary – Indie Memphis Film Festival

WINNER – Best Documentary – Twin Cities Film Festival

Nominee – Film Independent Spirit Awards

Official Selection:

New York Film Festival

BFI London Film Festival

Zurich Film Festival

Press

VARIETY “Winter’s Bone director Debra Granik provides plenty of surprises in her superb slice of American life on the margins…In an era when many coastal Americans’ ideas of the heartland poor come from hicksploitation TV series, Stray Dog provides a very welcome corrective.” – Andrew Barker, Variety – June 19, 2014

SCREEN INTERNATIONAL “Sympathetic without being sentimental or condescending, Stray Dog is an enormously touching, understated look at an aging Vietnam veteran still wrestling with the invisible scars of a war that took place some 40 years ago. This documentary, the first from Winter’s Bone filmmaker Debra Granik, utilizes an observational, unobtrusive style that reaps major rewards, offering a casual glimpse into a series of lives on the margins of American society, touching on family, faith, love and survival with an effortless grace.” – Tim Grierson, Screen International – June 14, 2014

NONFICS “Whenever someone asks what I mean when I say that too many docs look and feel the same, I can say, “None of them are like Stray Dog.” This is a film that blows apart your preconceived notions of how a documentary can be put together. It is a perfectly told story with vivid characters, an acute sense of place and many

Credits

Director: Debra Granik

Producers: Anne Rosellini & Victoria Stewart

Executive Producer: Jonathan Scheuer

Cinematographer: Eric Phillips-Horst

Editor: Victoria Stewart

Links

straydogthemovie.com

facebook.com/straydogdocumentary