Moondance Alexander
Moondance Alexander is a 2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Michael Damian and written by Janeen Damian. The film was released in North America in October 2007. The story is shot on location in Okotoks, High River and Calgary, Alberta, Canada and is based on actual events from the life of Janeen Damian. It stars former "Summerland" co-stars Kay Panabaker as Moondance Alexander and Lori Loughlin as Gelsey Alexander. The movie co-stars Don Johnson and Olympic-skating silver medalist Sasha Cohen. Plot. Moondance (Kay Panabaker) is faced with the difficulties of her father's passing  and her overprotective mother (Lori Loughlin). When she finds a lost pinto horse and discovers his jumping abilities, she convinces his owner Dante Longpre (Don Johnson) to train them to compete in a mop show. With a lot more to think about, Moondance has to worry about her enemy Fiona Hughes (Sasha Cohen) putting her down constantly with her fancy horse Monte Carlo. When they do a surprisingly good job at the show, Dante isn't questioned anymore about his ability to train riders and horses. Everybody is shocked when Moondance ties Fiona, the reigning Bow River Classic champion. Behind  the scenes. "Moondance Alexander" was not well received by "HorseChannel.com" for storyline believability reasons. However, the story is closely based upon Janeen Damian's childhood experience of befriending a horse that she had found, receiving help from a trainer, and entering the horse in the Memphis Classic. "Moondance Alexander" is a true family film, written by Janeen Damian and husband Michael Damian (born Michael Damian Weir), Damian, a Daytime Emmy Award winner, was also the producer of the film. Much of the music was written by Damian's brother, music producer and "New Music Weekly" editor, Larry Weir. Emmy Award  winning Tom Weir was the mixing engineer at Studio City Sound. Checkers the horse was played by three horses, a horse for tricks, a horse for jumping and a horse for Kay Panabaker to ride. Michael Damian recalled two of the horses names as Picasso and Trigger. The third horse's name is Spook. "Moondance Alexander" received a U.S. General Audiences rating and was filmed in Alberta, Canada. Soundtrack. The "Moondance Alexander Original Soundtrack" was the second soundtrack released under the Caption Records label.