Luke Gilford’s debut feature film, “National Anthem,” has hit theaters and received well-deserved national and global recognition from critics and viewers alike. Ty Burr, film critic at the Washington Post, states:

‘National Anthem’ is at its openhearted, poetically inclined best when observing an alternate vision of the American West that’s no less possible for being radical (and no less radical for being possible) — where the rugged individual is downplayed in favor of the supportive extended family, where the reinvention promised by the frontier embraces gender and sexuality, and where the landscape is wide and forgiving enough for an inarticulate young man to, as the quietly wise Carrie puts it, find his people.

Read the full article here, watch the trailer of “National Anthem” here, and find Luke Gilford’s photo project “National Anthem,” the result of years of documenting the unique subculture within the International Gay Rodeo Association – the organizing body for the LGBTQ+ cowboy and cowgirl communities in North America, here.