A film festival that originated near Chicago will makes its New York City debut at The MIST in Harlem this weekend.

Founded by horsewoman Lisa Diersen, the Equus Film Festival began last year with the Festival of the Horse and Drum, a multicultural equine festival with Native American themes that Diersen describes as “kind of like the United Nations of horses.”

Diersen was spurred to create the festival in order to bring The Horse Boy to a wider audience. Produced by Diersen’s friend Rupert Isaacson, the film captures a family’s journey to Mongolia to explore equine and alternative therapy for their autistic son.

“I wanted to be able to show Rupert’s film,” said Diersen, speaking from her barn in Illinois, where she raises Lusitania horses, “so we developed a horse film festival and ran it here in a beautiful little theater, the Arcada in St. Charles.”

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