“The Ballad of the Bush Mare” begins with a young girl, Maiwya, and her mother traveling on a ship from Afghanistan to Australia’s Thursday Island in the 1800s. En route to their destination, the girl and her mother are separated by a British colonial man.
The pilot episode then cuts to 20 years later. Rather than wither beneath the brutality of colonial Australia, Maiwya becomes the Bush Mare — an Australian cowgirl and fierce outlaw riding for liberation.
Parkite Jackie Nico, who is co-producing, co-directing and acting in the series, said the story continues from there, following Maiwya’s journey of resilience.
“It's a Western, yes, but it kind of just defies the strict categorization of that,” Jackie Nico said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” Friday. “There's a lot of poetry involved in it, so there's a voice over it that follows her through the bushland, and then she comes across a lot of adversity from people she meets along the way from her past.”
Nico said the project is a non-traditional hero's journey.
“It kind of just defies the odds of, I think, especially like how we see and saw women of that time, and we completely broke the mold on that, and we put this very modern twist to this historic time,” she said.
Australian filmmaker Ayeshah Zakiya Rose wrote the series, basing it on her own family history. She’s also co-producing the project and stars as Maiwya.
Nico said she and Rose met through a mutual friend who said he had a strong feeling the pair should meet. After seeing the show’s pitch deck, Nico immediately knew she wanted to be part of the project.
The pilot for the series is almost finished. Nico said scenes with the ship were shot in Australia with everything else captured in Utah, including three days in and around Summit County.
Rose chose the area for the desert which is similar to the land in northern Australia.
Nico said the team will submit the first episode, which is around an hour and 15 minutes, to the 2026 Sundance Film Festival’s pilot category.
The 2026 Sundance Film Festival will run from Jan. 22 to Feb. 1. The festival moves to Boulder, Colorado, starting in 2027.
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