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Brady Jandreau is a friendly guy who wears his cowboy hat with pride. But just under the brim you can see a big scar on his forehead.
 

Jandreau can remember riding the bronco during a rodeo at the Fargodome. He recalls thinking he wasn't getting the rhythm right — and then he came off.


 
"My foot hung up in the stirrup, I went under the horse, and she stepped on my head," he said. "And it was three and a quarter inches in length, an inch and a quarter deep in the middle, shape of a horse hoof, with manure, sand, bone fragments, hair, all in there."
 


Jandreau's story is the inspiration for "The Rider," showing this weekend at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival. The internationally acclaimed drama, filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, tells the story of a Lakota rodeo rider kicked in the head by his horse. Jandreau plays the lead character in the film.
 

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After the real-life accident, he was conscious all the way to the hospital. In fact, the emergency room technicians initially thought they were dealing with a neck injury because he was still awake. Then he had a seizure and they put him into an induced coma. He ended up with a metal plate in his head.
 

When he left the hospital, he went looking for things he knew would make him feel better.

 
"I was on my way home, and they didn't allow tobacco in the hospital. I put a pinch of chew in. And spit it out and stopped at a gas station and ate a chuckwagon and some chips, and I felt pretty good ever since," he said with a chuckle.
 

Despite dire warnings that he should take it easy, he was soon back at his day job, training horses. He already knew film director Chloe Zhao, who had been in the Pine Ridge community making her first film, 

 She called when she heard what he was doing.

 
"She was worried sick. And she was like, 'What are you doing? You could die!' I said, 'Well, Chloe, I don't feel alive not being able to ride.' She's like, 'OK, I think we have a movie here!'"
 

The film will screen to a sold-out audience at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival Saturday evening. It opens in theaters next week.

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"The Rider" depicts a rodeo rider's near-death experience, and his determination to keep working with horses.

Thrown from a horse, he landed in an acclaimed film

Lakota cowboy Brady Jandreau will introduce 'The Rider' at the MSPIFF.

Thrown from a horse, he landed in an acclaimed film

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