Three years ago, Mobile audiences got to see something rare: a local girl’s film about riding 1,600 kilometers across the mountains and steppes of Kyrgyzstan, on horseback, along the ancient Silk Road. The film, “En Selle: The Kyrgyz Ride,” told the story of Ashley Parsons and her partner Quentin Boehm, two riders who acquired three stallions in Central Asia and slowly made their way through one of the most dramatic landscapes on earth.
The sequel has now arrived. “Le Sabot Montagnard” — translated as “Mountain Hoof” — screened at the Crescent Theater in Mobile, and Parsons and Boehm were present for a question-and-answer session afterward. Both films have won numerous awards at European film festivals, and together they document one of the more remarkable slow-travel projects ever launched by an Alabama native.
The Journey
The second film picks up where the first left off. After completing their Kyrgyzstan journey and returning to their home at the foot of Mont Blanc in France, Parsons and Boehm could not stop thinking about the three horses they had left in the care of a friend. So they went back for them — and rode them home.
The seven-month journey on foot and horseback carried the pair and their horses Brando, Chai and Fidel through Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Italy and Switzerland before they reached France. The riders filmed their travels with drones and GoPros, and a videographer traveled with them for several weeks. The scenery is gorgeous by any measure, but the heart of the film is the relationship between the travelers and their horses, and the people and landscapes they encountered along the way.
The project’s funding tells its own story about how adventure documentaries get made today: a mix of sponsors, crowdfunding and French television deals carried two films from a wild idea to the festival circuit.
From West Mobile to Mont Blanc
How does a Mobile girl become a bilingual equestrian adventurer, writer and filmmaker? The answer starts close to home. Parsons grew up in West Mobile, where her mother, Becky, operated the Mobile Equestrian Center, and Ashley was completely surrounded by horses and riders from childhood. She attended St. Paul’s Episcopal School before switching to homeschooling so she could travel to horse competitions.
At Birmingham-Southern College, her coach and trainer Gerard Kirsh, who was French, encouraged her to study abroad in France. She earned her degree in International Studies and French from BSC, moved to France permanently, and taught English before completing a master’s degree at the American University in Paris.
After three years she was getting restless, and as fate intervened, she met Quentin. The two discovered they shared the same instinct — to live their lives outside, in nature, moving. After much research, they realized they could travel on horseback, and the films are the result of that decision. Few paths from a Mobile riding stable lead to the high Alps, but this one did, and it passed through a French coach’s encouragement at a small college on Birmingham’s west side.
Writing the Adventure Down
Parsons has paired the films with a substantial writing career, contributing to popular adventure media outlets including Lonely Planet, Les Others, Komoot, Atlas Obscura, Fodor’s Travel and Sidetracked Magazine. Her written work extends the films’ appeal to armchair travelers and offers a candid look at the logistics of moving with horses across borders, mountains and seasons.
These days there is a new traveling companion in the mix. Parsons is a new mother, with a three-month-old baby boy named Leon, who was along for the ride at the Mobile screening. When an audience member asked what was next for the family, her answer was characteristically game: as soon as the baby can hold his head up, he can travel with them in a saddlebag made especially for babies, so they will see.
Why the Films Resonate
There is a long tradition of horseback travel writing — the slow journey as a way of seeing — and Parsons’ films sit comfortably in it while adding a distinctly contemporary texture: drone shots over mountain passes, a videographer embedded for weeks, and the intimate footage that only comes from filmmakers who are living the journey rather than visiting it. Audiences watch harrowing moments, meet fascinating people, and share the small daily negotiations of feeding, shoeing and trusting three horses across two continents.
The films also carry a quieter message about persistence. The Kyrgyz journey began with months of planning and a leap into the unknown: acquiring three stallions in a country where they had never ridden, and committing to ride them 1,600 kilometers. That the pair returned for the animals and rode them across Europe home only deepens the story’s logic — the horses had become family, and family gets brought home.
Viewers can stream “En Selle: The Kyrgyz Ride” on YouTube, and the sequel is being prepared for distribution. For an armchair adventure featuring beautiful scenery, harrowing moments and introductions to fascinating people, the two films together make a remarkable double feature — and a reminder that one of the world’s great slow-travel stories is being told by a young woman who learned to ride in West Mobile.