Female-run horse ranch in the Badlands to hit the big screen

From taming renegade horses on her dusty ranch in South Dakota to shining her spurs for the red carpet in New York, Tabatha Zimiga never saw it coming.

She brands cattle in Badland Country and coaches wayward teens toward their first belt buckle in competitive rodeo. She slow-cooks a pot roast for the neighbor kids then hushes her 40-head of horses to bed each night, with a diapered baby on her hip.

(Nevermind that the rest of her kids are still riding bareback and barefoot out there somewhere in the dark).

Zimiga grinds with no remorse. She riots her way through an archaic cowboy culture with wing-tipped eyeliner and a half-shaved head that will intimidate the hell out of you. She has no time to be soft or to reflect or to grieve the sudden death of her lover in 2019. Give her your hand, and she’ll sic her rottweilers to your feet.

Until she met a new friend.

Los Angeles filmmaker Kate Beecroft “had no business” happening upon Zimiga while making a wrong turn just east of Wall, South Dakota, more than five years ago. There was no likelihood for her to be away from the west coast at all, but she was craving a good story to tell the way Zimiga was craving for someone to listen to hers.

So she pulled up to a trailer home frozen in time and a group of teenage girls staring her down – her old Toyota Tacoma a pion on the gaping plains. And she didn’t turn around.

In no less than an hour, the cowgirl shared her secrets with the Californian, and Zimiga’s diary will now open for us all as part of Beecroft’s debut feature film, “East of Wall,” premiering Aug. 15 nationwide.

Learning how to act, writing together

Beecroft was supposed to be an actress. She studied Shakespeare in college and went to drama school in London before realizing she wanted to cast the stars, not be one.

She leaned into people, fascinated by whatever they felt made their life tedious, and Zimiga fit this unorthodox endeavor.

Instead of writing a script then piecing together the cast, Beecroft plucked a real story from a real rancher in the emptiest part of the country. Then, she patiently “searched for the magic.”

After first meeting Zimiga, Beecroft was drawn to the ranch again and again. Eventually, she just stayed − living with the family for three years.

“I didn’t think this would become a feature film, but I did know I was in love with their lives,” said Beecroft, 31. “I felt starstruck and was obsessed with them but also more connected to myself when I was with them.”

“East of Wall” is a docu-fiction drama that features Zimiga, 36, playing herself, her 18-year-old daughter, Porshia Zimiga, playing herself and a few other rider friends stepping in as novice actors. Tabby’s 6-year-old son, Stetson, is also in the film.

Their story was crafted by Beecroft while she was living their life alongside them and working with a very scant budget – tagging calves, bailing hay, grabbing a soda and an Indian taco in Wasta or stepping out while Mom screams at Porshia for stealing traffic cones in the middle of the night.

“They were for barrel racing!” Porshia says. (That one makes it into the film).

But it’s all collaboratively scripted, putting Tabby and Porshia into the position of essentially rehashing their own stories in real time – not an easy feat for a feral teenager and a broken-down widow trying to maintain 1,200 acres of family farmland on her own.

“I ain’t no ‘Yellowstone,’ ” Tabby says. “I ain’t got no white picket fence or lush green grass everywhere. I got prairie dog holes and mean-ass dogs outside, but I have a lot of trust in Kate.”

TikTok on the horse ranch

“East of Wall” first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. It won most votes from audience attendees and was quickly picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, likely for its raw slap in the face about warrior women in the modern American West.

The melodramatic intensity of a classic Western does well and all, but put a bunch of tattooed women around a campfire to reveal the real macabre behind a cowboy, leaving the cameramen in tears, and you’ve got what they call “Hollywood gold.”

“I tried to leave the theater watching that scene,” Tabby says. “Porshia did, too. But Kate held my hand and kept me there, and it has made the grief easier.”

Beecroft taught herself how to direct while at the same time teaching these girls how to act, but she always saw it in them.

“I needed to see their faces and their souls onscreen,” Beecroft says. “They have a natural ability as performers, and anyone who watches this will fall in love with Tabby and these kids.”

The film is unexpected, too. Yes, there are rodeo queens, the twinkle in a cowboy’s eye and the romantic haze of a sunset, but then Tabby’s selling horses on TikTok, the girls play Shaboozey while riding bareback in bikinis and someone just landed a backward flip off their horse.

All the music in the film is from Tabby’s Spotify playlists for rodeos or breaking horses. Forget the cowboy hat, your girl’s got a JBL speaker tied to her saddle.

“I’m a vegan from LA,” Beecroft says. “I didn’t want my fingerprints too much on this film. I wanted it to be Tabby and incorporate how she sees things.”

A story of female resilience

There were a few actors in the film. Broadway star Jennifer Ehle, known for “Pride and Prejudice” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” stars as Tabby’s mother, Tracy, and even wore Tracy’s actual clothes for the movie.

And Emmy-nominated actor Scoot McNairy, who recently starred in the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” plays fictional character Roy, a filthy deep-pocket rancher who wants to buy Tabby’s land.

“East of Wall” is a story about female resilience: their unapologetic power behind the submissiveness that Hollywood wants us to see in a woman.

But the film made it this far by the power of friendship. The cowgirl and the Californian who “protect each other,” lived together and broke bread together are “forever.”

“We’re worlds apart,” Beecroft says. “But she’s the closest person in my life.”