Outside the boundaries of America’s collective folk imagination and underlying the sweeping narrative of U.S. history lies the lived experience of the nation’s westward pioneers. Without exaggeration or embellishment, this captivating documentary focuses on the lives of the common people who headed West between the early 1860s and the turn of the 20th century. Accounts of personal challenges and hardships, interwoven with larger stories of progress and warfare, create a vivid narrative that presents the expansion of America through the eyes of those who won the West at the expense of the land’s indigenous peoples. By demythologizing America’s Manifest Destiny, Out West will doubtlessly alter many previously unquestioned beliefs. (57 minutes)