| Moondance Alexander | |
| Director: | Michael Damian |
| Producer: | Brad Krevoy |
| Starring: | |
| Cinematography: | Julien Eudes |
| Editing: |
|
| Music: | Mark Thomas |
| Studio: | Motion Picture Corporation of America |
| Distributor: | Fox Faith |
| Runtime: | 93 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Gross: | $37,895 |
Moondance Alexander is a 2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Michael Damian and written by Janeen Damian, Juan Saenz and Martha Lopez. Shot on location in Okotoks, High River and Calgary, Alberta, Canada the film is based on actual events from the life of Janeen Damian. It stars Kay Panabaker and Lori Loughlin, with Don Johnson and Sasha Cohen.
Moondance (Kay Panabaker) is faced with the difficulties of her father's passing and her overprotective mother (Lori Loughlin). When she finds a lost pinto horse and discovers his jumping abilities, she convinces his owner Dante Longpre (Don Johnson) to train them to compete in a jumping show. There Moondance faces her enemy Fiona Hughes (Sasha Cohen) and her fancy horse Monte Carlo. When they do a surprisingly good job at the show, Dante isn't questioned anymore about his ability to train riders and horses. Everybody is shocked when Moondance ties Fiona, the reigning Bow River Classic champion.
Moondance Alexander was not well received by HorseChannel.com for storyline believability reasons.[1] However, the story is closely based upon Janeen Damian's childhood experience of befriending a horse that she had found, receiving help from a trainer, and entering the horse in the Memphis Classic.[2]
Moondance Alexander is a true family film, written by Janeen Damian and husband Michael Damian (born Michael Damian Weir), Damian, a Daytime Emmy Award winner, was also the producer of the film.[3] Much of the music was written by Damian's brother, music producer and New Music Weekly editor, Larry Weir.[4] Emmy Award winning Tom Weir was the mixing engineer at Studio City Sound.
Checkers the horse was played by three horses, a horse for tricks, a horse for jumping and a horse for Kay Panabaker to ride. Michael Damian recalled two of the horses names as Picasso and Trigger. The third horse's name is Spook.[5]
Moondance Alexander received a U.S. General Audiences rating and was filmed in Alberta, Canada.
|+ |-| 2007| Best Picture| Dixie Film Festival [6] ||-|2007| Best Actress (Kay Panabaker)| Dixie Film Festival | |}
The Moondance Alexander Original Soundtrack was the second soundtrack released under the Caption Records label.