Synopsis
Setting West was made using original printing materials from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as wood type, borders and stereotypes of “Cowboys and Indians”, trains and bison. These words and images were printed directly onto 35mm clear film stock at eminent letterpress studios in North America: the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers, the Center for Book and Paper Arts in Chicago, the Hatch Show Print in Nashville and the Musée de l’imprimerie du Québec & Lovell Litho in Montréal. Judith Poirier printed 1,643 feet of film to produce her abstract western and her technique of printing onto celluloid creates a unique texture on screen, as well as generating an original soundtrack. Setting West reinterprets a classic cinematic genre while exploring a formative period in the history of typography and printing.
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Monte Walsh is an aging cowboy facing the ending days of the Wild West era. As barbed wire and railways steadily eliminate the need for the cowboy, Monte and his friends are left with fewer and fewer options. New work opportunities are available to them, but the freedom of the open prarie is what they long for. Eventually, they all must say goodbye to the lives they knew, and try to make a new start.
Monte Walsh

A cattle-vs.-sheepman feud loses Connie Dickason her fiance, but gains her his ranch, which she determines to run alone in opposition to Frank Ivey, "boss" of the valley, whom her father Ben wanted her to marry. She hires recovering alcoholic Dave Nash as foreman and a crew of Ivey's enemies. Ivey fights back with violence and destruction, but Dave is determined to counter him legally... a feeling not shared by his associates. Connie's boast that, as a woman, she doesn't need guns proves justified, but plenty of gunplay results.
Ramrod

Two black bounty hunters ride into a small town out West in pursuit of an outlaw. They discover that the town has no sheriff, and soon take over that position, much against the will of the mostly white townsfolk.
Boss Nigger

A buffalo hunter has a falling-out with his partner, who kills for fun.
The Last Hunt

Jubal Troop is a cowboy who is found in a weakened condition, without a horse. He is given shelter at Shep Horgan's large ranch, where he quickly makes an enemy in foreman Pinky, a cattleman who accuses Jubal of carrying the smell of sheep.
Jubal

Jake Remy leads a gang of outlaw cutthroats making their escape toward Mexico from a successful robbery. Barring their way is a river--crossable only by means of a ferry barge. The barge operator, Travis, refuses to be bullied into providing transport for the gang and escapes across river with most of the local populace--leaving Remy and his gang behind, desperately seeking a way across. A river-wide stand-off begins between the gang and the townspeople, both groups of which have left people on the wrong side of the river.
Barquero

Two tough westerners bring home a group of settlers who have spent years as Comanche hostages.
Two Rode Together

A con man heading west to search for gold teams up with a pair of scheming brothers along the way. The trio soon find themselves in the middle of a feud between two rival families and two underhanded land developers.
Go West

In the 1870s, a young Harvard dropout seeks his destiny out West by tying his fate to a team of buffalo hunters led by a man named Miller. Together, they embark on a harrowing journey risking life and sanity.
Butcher's Crossing

A man and his partner arrive at a small Western town to kill its most powerful man because the former blames him for his wife's death.
Decision at Sundown

In this epic Western, Wade Hatton, a wagon master turned sheriff, tames a cow town at the end of a railroad line.
Dodge City

A bronc rider in denial about his fading rodeo career battles against brain injury and a sudden blizzard while reflecting on how it became so difficult to achieve his dreams.
Broke

A former sheriff relentlessly pursuing the 7 men who murdered his wife in Arizona crosses paths with a couple heading to California.
7 Men from Now

As a cowardly farmer begins to fall for the mysterious new woman in town, he must put his new-found courage to the test when her husband, a notorious gun-slinger, announces his arrival.
A Million Ways to Die in the West

A wandering cowboy gets caught up in a range war.
Man Without a Star

American gunslinger Sean Rafferty—aka The Montana Kid—is unable to find someone to duel in a Canadian town where no one understands the brutal code of the American Wild West.
Gunless

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Union Pacific

A prospector sells his wife and daughter to another gold miner for the rights to a gold mine. Twenty years later, the prospector is a wealthy man who owns much of the old west town named Kingdom Come. But changes are brewing and his past is coming back to haunt him. A surveyor and his crew scouts the town as a location for a new railroad line and a young woman suddenly appears in the town and is evidently the man's daughter.
The Claim

Vignettes weaving together the stories of six individuals in the old West at the end of the Civil War. Following the tales of a sharp-shooting songster, a wannabe bank robber, two weary traveling performers, a lone gold prospector, a woman traveling the West to an uncertain future, and a motley crew of strangers undertaking a carriage ride.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Looking to mine for gold, greedy industrialist Bartholomew Bogue seizes control of the Old West town of Rose Creek. With their lives in jeopardy, Emma Cullen and other desperate residents turn to bounty hunter Sam Chisolm for help. Chisolm recruits an eclectic group of gunslingers to take on Bogue and his ruthless henchmen. With a deadly showdown on the horizon, the seven mercenaries soon find themselves fighting for more than just money once the bullets start to fly.