A look at some of the best documentaries at SXSW

Documentaries will be one of the highlights at this year's South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival. The American-Statesman received early DVDs of many of the films and is highlighting some of the best as the festival kicks off today. More documentaries will be featured during the festival. Film times are subject to change. Check sxsw.com/film for up-to-the-minute information.

‘Buck'

"Buck" has heart and tack. Winner of the U.S. Documentary Audience Award at Sundance this year, the calm, appealing film trails a legendary horse trainer as he travels the country holding clinics for troublesome horses and sometimes troubled owners.

"A lot of times instead of helping people with horse problems, I'm helping horses with people problems," Dan M. "Buck" Brannaman says in his soft, horse-whispery voice. "All horses are a mirror to your soul."

Buck and his brother grew up as trick ropers. Brutalized by a "terrifying" father after their mother died, they were beaten for imperfect performances. After a coach saw welts on his back, a sheriff took Buck to live with a foster family that loved him.

But instead of bitterness and rage, Buck turned his boyhood angst into empathy for horses. He understands what it's like to be scared. Following in the boots of Ray Hunt, one of the founders of the Natural Horsemanship movement, he learned to think like a horse, invoking compassion and trust instead of cruelty and fear.

Directed by first-timer Cindy Meehl of Redding, Conn.
(4 p.m. Sunday, Arbor; 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Paramount; 5:30 p.m. March 19, State Theatre)

— Jane Sumner

"Where Soldiers Come From"

In "Where Soldiers Come From," director Heather Courtney returns to her rural hometown in Michigan's upper peninsula to document the lives of a group of high school friends who join the National Guard. They want to attend college eventually, but they need the signing bonuses as well as the tuition help they'll get.

Midway through their service, they discover that they'll be heading to Afghanistan to drive armored trucks along dusty roads, to look for bombs.

Courtney eventually embeds with their unit and follows them on their missions. She also films them in their barracks. Some suffer concussions from the bomb blasts. Some become hostile about Afghanistan.

And upon their return home, Courtney continues to track the men as they try to readjust, with difficulty, to civilian life.

Spanning four years, "Where Soldiers Come From" represents a remarkable commitment of Courtney's time and effort. It's also a significant, moving, saddening portrayal of the effects of war on the nation's young men.

(2 p.m. Monday, Vimeo Theater; 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Alamo South; 2:30 p.m. March 19, Paramount)

— Charles Ealy

"Something Ventured"

If you saw last year's Oscar-winning documentary "Inside Job," you might have concluded that American capitalism has some big rotten spots.

"Something Ventured," an ambitious, well-researched documentary, makes the argument that there are at least some good guys — the venture capitalists.

Directed by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, "Something Ventured" takes us back to the beginnings of venture capitalism in the late 1950s, when a few people decided to take big risks in hopes of huge rewards — and helped restart the American innovation engine.

It's essentially the story of how such companies as Apple, Intel, Cisco, Atari and Genentech came to be.

Not one of those highly successful companies was a sure thing when investors began to lend them money.

But the actions of these investors were crucial to the development of personal computers, the Internet and biotechnology.

As with many documentaries, "Something Ventured" features plenty of talking heads. But the people who are talking are fascinating and inspiring. They include Arthur Rock, an early investor in Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, Apple and Teledyne, and Tom Perkins, who helped fund Genentech and Tandem.

Some of these men talk about their great success. But just as many are willing to talk about big mistakes.