The Long Rider

Journalist, author and long-time horse rider Filipe Masetti Leite is working on a few projects that will soon be coming to our TV screens.

The 2011 J-School grad has a feature-length documentary, titled The Long Rider, and a three-season reality series, titled Journey America, coming out about his decade-long journey of crossing the Americas on horseback.

While Journey America will be coming out sometime in 2023, The Long Rider recently had its world premiere at the Beaufort International Film Festival (external link) .

Apart from being the cinematographer, Leite is the producer and photography director for the documentary and the director for the television series.

Leite recalls his initial plans getting off to a rocky start.

"I contacted hundreds of production companies. No one wanted anything to do with the project," says Leite. "I was too young, I was too inexperienced, it was impossible, I was going to die."

Eventually, a production company in Nashville, Tenn., agreed to fund the project. 

Leite is the youngest person to cross the Americas on horseback, but his journey is split into three significant stretches.

"I'm originally from Brazil. So when I started planning the project, it was obvious. I'm going to go from Canada to Brazil. I'm gonna ride home. When I got to Brazil, I decided to go further, and I went on a second long ride from Brazil to the southern tip of South America, Ushuaia, down in Argentina— a little island called Tierra del Fuego. And then when I got there, I was like, 'Hell, now all I have left is the north to finish the Americas.' So in 2019, I started that final leg from Fairbanks, Alaska, back to the Calgary Stampede, where everything began eight years prior."

The television series, as well as Leite's books, are split into three due to the distinctions of his three journeys.

"I just ended where I started," says Leite. "I kind of went in search of something, and really it was at home— it was here in Canada all along."

What Leite hopes that people get out of this documentary is some self-reflection.

"I think that today, we're very comfortable. We're set in our ways and sometimes we tend to forget that we only have one life, and it has a beginning, middle and an end. We end up doing things that we don't enjoy, sometimes for others, because we're comfortable and it's convenient," he says. "And I feel like, truly, I was put on this earth to go on this journey. It was my life's dream. And I want other people to live their dreams, to live their goals and to truly enjoy this opportunity."

The Long Rider will have a theatrical release this summer and will join Super Channel as well as Amazon Prime this coming fall.

Leite's third book in his 'long rider' series, titled The Last Long Ride, will be out July 8, 2022.

Look for the television series, Journey America, in 2023.

You can find more information about Leite here (external link) , as well as the Instagram page for the documentary here (external link) .