Horse Powers: From the Land of the Vikings
For thousands of years, people have relied on horses to get them from place to place, farm their lands and charge through battlefields. But interactions with horses can also have therapeutic value. As Winston Churchill once said, “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.” In Horse Powers: From the Land of the Vikings, filmmaker Jonathan Dale Learn takes viewers to Norway and Saratoga, New York to explore the health and wellness benefits that equines can provide.
The film revolves around a mountain horsewoman who left a city job behind to raise horses in the country and compete in the Mongol Derby, a family that raises and trains horses as a family business, and an Norwegian Afghanistan 
war veteran who traveled to the United States to take advantage of veterans/horse bonding programs for PTSD offered only in New York and Arizona.
In order to catch all four seasons and get the broadest depth of the relationship between Norwegian people and their horses, Learn spent two years filming in Norway. Then the 
filmmakers traveled with a vet named Nico to WarHorse in Saratoga, New York, a place that matches retired race horses with veterans to ‘reconnect the circuits’ that have been damaged by PTSD.
The last of the filming took place in 2018, with post-production (editing) being completed in the Fall. Now the film is 
making its way around the film festival circuit. In addition to the Fort Myers Film Festival, the documentary is an official selection of the 2019 Largo Film Awards and took Best Direction at the 2018 Equus Film Festival in New York.
Norwegian (TV2) and U.S. public television (PBS) have signed up to broadcast Horse Powers.
It will be shown during this year’s edition of the Fort Myers Film Festival at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, April 11 in the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center.
March 31, 2019.
#BeYou@#FMFF.
About the Author
Tom Hall is both an amateur artist and aspiring novelist who writes art quest thrillers. He is in the final stages of completing his debut novel titled "Art Detective," a story that fictionalizes the discovery of the fabled billion-dollar Impressionist collection of Parisian art dealer Josse Bernheim-Jeune, thought by many to have perished during World War II when the collection's hiding place, Castle de Rastignac in southern France, was destroyed by the Wehrmacht in reprisal for attacks made by members of the Resistance operating in the area. A former tax attorney, Tom holds a bachelor's degree as well as both a juris doctorate and masters of laws in taxation from the University of Florida. Tom lives in Estero, Florida with his fiancee, Connie, and their four cats.