A film by ANDRÉ HÖRMANN

with CROWLEY MCCUISTION, YANCIE MCCUISTION FARRAH LEE, CHANEY MCCUISTION, CURT MCCUISTION

director of photography TOM BERGMANN co-author and editor VINCENT ASSMANN
sound NIKOLA CHAPELLE and OUSSAMA ABDOUH
music ROGER GOULA sound design and mix ALEX RUBIN, BVFT
production manager BETTINA MORLOCK associate producer NEVO SHINAAR
commissioning editor KATHRIN BRINKMANN co-producer MARK MITTEN
producer HEIKE KUNZE writer and director ANDRÉ HÖRMANN

a TELEKULT PRODUCTION in co-production with MITTEN MEDIA and ZDF in collaboration with ARTE supported with funds from FILMFÖRDERUNGSANSTALT, FILMFERNSEHFONDS BAYERN, DEUTSCHER FILMFÖRDERFONDS and KURATORIUM JUNGER DEUTSCHER FILM

in association with SVERIGES TELEVISION AB (SVT) and TVONTARIO (TVO)

Germany/USA 2025 | 90 min | color | DCP | Dolby Digital 5.1 | English | French or German subtitles

The Cowboy opens to the distorted sounds of a folk guitar and to picturesque images of the American West. From behind the camera, André Hörmann invites Crowley, a young man in his early twenties, to explain once more what it takes to live the life of a cowboy. Wearing his hat, Crowley remains silent, trying to remember what he said when the director asked him the same question ten years earlier. The young adult is then seen as a child again, an eleven-year-old reciting, sure of himself, an archetypal definition of a cowboy. From the outset, The Cowboy reveals the scope of its ambition: to cover the life of a young man, from his childhood in Colorado in 2015 to his entering into adulthood and starting an independent life in Texas, in the city of Happy, in 2024.

How does one become oneself within a fixed model and in a world where the very town names affirm our happiness? More than just an initiatory story, André Hörmann’s film (who put together and completed several short films that already focused on Crowley) offers a nuanced portrait of Americana and its archetypes. Although the film begins with a seemingly almost stereotyped model of life in the West, the initial foundation of values and imperatives gradually cracks. Crowley finds himself rapidly confronted with disillusionment and family dramas, yet his life is captured without any ostentation and moral judgment.