Movie director and writer, Rupert Isaacson, spoke about about his experience filming The Horse Boy at the Gates Scholars’ Distinguished Lecture on 14 January 2010 .
The documentary feature film, based on the New York Times Best-seller The Horse Boy: A father’s Quest to Health His Son, was nominated for an award the Sundance Film Festival and was critically acclaimed. The documentary and book chronicles a family’s journey to Mongolia as they search to find a way to help their five-year-old autistic son though contact with horses in the wild. With a background in travel writing, Mr. Isaacson and his wife left their home in Texas for a four-week trek through Mongolia and enlisted the help of a filmmaker with experience from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy to document this remarkable journey. Widespread interest surrounding this journey resulted in an advance payment of more than $1 million dollars to Mr. Isaacson before he and his family set off, and demand for his book resulted in a first printing of 150,000 copies.
