Chaps - Amy Phillips
Documentary Video
16:00
Chaps is a short documentary about the World Gay Rodeo Finals in El Reno,, Oklahoma. It weaves bull riding, drag performances, and personal stories to explore the unexpected harmony between queerness and rodeo culture.
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Amy Phillips
Amy Phillips is an emerging filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist focusing on exploring gender and sexuality across the American landscape. Their work captures the niche communities absent from the cultural zeitgeist and strives to make you fall in love with them as if they were your own. Phillips' love letters to queer culture reflect that there is no bond stronger than those forged through passion, family, and a willingness to be unapologetically oneself.
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Chaps brings you to an unexpected event in the center of Oklahoma— a year's worth of travel, competition, and performances lead up to the World Gay Rodeo Finals, where families, drag queens, and cowboys gather to celebrate western traditions. The days bring a slew of nonstop, action packed rodeo events, and the nights host displays of comedic, emotional, and raunchy Royalty Pageants. But beneath the dust and rhinestones is a group of folks who have become a true family. There are people who have rodeoed since the 1980s and people who have picked it up in the last year, those whose families come to support them in the arena and those who have found new family through rodeo when their own have cast them out. Through audio interviews woven with action and performance footage, Chaps captures both the grit and the grace of the rodeo lifestyle that emphasizes acceptance and love above all else.Ìý
