MILLION DOLLAR COWGIRL COUNTRY
Where the future - and the past - are female
Trailers
Film Specs:
Documentary · 53 min · USA · English · 16:9 · Stereo · 4K
Synopsis
Jackson Hole, Wyoming is unlike any place in America — a rugged pioneer town that became one of the wealthiest zip codes in the country, where cowboys, artists, ranchers, and dreamers share a landscape so magnificent it draws people from everywhere and changes them upon arrival. But as money and influence reshape the West, the soul of this place is under pressure — and the people who built it are fighting to hold on. At the heart of that fight is an unlikely institution: Cowgirls at the Cowboy, the nation's first and only all-female country music festival, held inside the legendary Million Dollar Cowboy Bar. Co-founded by up-and-coming artist Jenny Tolman and the late community visionary Bill Baxter, the festival is both a celebration and a declaration — drawing a direct line from Wyoming's trailblazing women's suffrage history to a country music industry that has long underestimated its women. Million Dollar Cowgirl Country tells the story of a town, a festival, and the cowgirls — past and present — who refuse to let the West be anything less than what it was always meant to be.
Director’s Note
“I first heard about Cowgirls at the Cowboy in Jackson Hole, Wyoming through Jenny Tolman, when my work at CMT brought us together around the festival's inception. She mentioned she was curating an all-female country music festival and I said, almost offhand, "I think you might be the only one doing that." She said that was true, and to this day I still can't believe it. The event also takes place at one of the most iconic bars/honky-tonks in the world. I've always believed women were the better storytellers in country music. Dolly. Loretta. Emmylou. Gillian Welch. The Judds. Kacey Musgraves. Ella Langley. The list is long and the talent is undeniable, and yet the industry has never fully reflected that. When I started pulling on that thread, I found something even bigger underneath: Wyoming — the Equality State — was the first to grant women the vote, produced the first female governor, and gave us the first all-female city council in the country. And now it's home to the only all-female country music festival in the world. That is not a coincidence. That is a through-line. Then my producing partner, Sara Scannell, and I started meeting people around town: women who ran several ranches, the historical society, the town theatre, Hall of Fame skiers...it just goes on and on. Wyoming's history is not what you might think. Women remade the rough and rowdy West into places like Jackson Hole. Add to that the staggering beauty of that town and region—a landscape that humbles you and opens something up inside you—and we knew this story had to be told.”
— Quinn Brown
Programmers and Press
Screener is a fine cut — final color and mix pending.
Atlanta Film Summit — 2027
