Mr. Brannaman can do anything on a horse — "God had him in mind when he made a cowboy," said Gary Myers, a ranch owner who appears in the film — and the camera revels in his ability, with jaw-dropping slow-motion interludes.
"Our horse, God, he's such an amazing horse," he said.
They cite parallels with figures such as the Kentish totemic horse-gods Hengest and Horsa, who later became historicised.
The poetry of another poet-philosopher, Xenophanes, from the Ionian city of Colophon, addressed itself to problems of religion and concluded that if horses had gods those gods would be horses, just as Ethiopian gods are black-skinned and Thracian gods have blue eyes.
The recent winners in the category – "Clybourne Park," "War Horse," "Red," "God of Carnage" and "August: Osage County" – were all favorites to varying degrees.
There were donkeys, horses and God knows what,' says Ray.
Horses of God: terrific, vibrant look at young radicalisation.
The shortlisted titles are: 1. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigerian, Fourth Estate) 2. Horses of God by Mahi Binebine (Moroccan).
The book was turned into a movie, "The Horses of God," by the director Nabil Ayouche, shown at the Cannes film festival last year.
Other films in the schedule include Horses Of God and They Are The Dogs from rising Moroccan talent Nabil Ayouch, Ahmad Abdalla's experimental Egyptian revolution drama Rags and Tatters, and Homeland, Mohamed Hamidi's comedic debut set in Algeria.
Throughout, horses' names are in italics, so the text looks like a Puritan screed of some kind: "The horse racing Gods royally screwed us all on that day...They committed a terrible blunder when they took Swale from us," Thompson writes.
