Girl of Their Dreams

Biana Tamimi, presently a seventh-grader at St. Stephen's in Austin, never could have imagined that by the age of 13 she would be starring in Disney's new IMAX movie, Young Black Stallion. In fact, she had never dreamed of movie stardom or pursuing a career in acting at all. But sometimes, things just happen: A unique opportunity arises, and we follow where it leads. In Biana's case, it led to Africa for a 10-week shoot in Namibia, filming the prequel to the stunning horse movie of 1979, The Black Stallion.

The story of how Biana came to star in this movie is a tale in itself. A poised and articulate 13-year-old, Biana's afterschool activities tend not toward the dramatic, but rather the athletic, arts. An accomplished horsewoman who has been riding since the age of 4, Biana owns her own horse and rides it several times a week, perhaps on the afternoons she's not playing basketball or doing homework. One evening a couple of years ago, Biana's routine was turned upside down -- all with a little help from some friends.

"My friend's mom was looking on the Internet for film courses for him because he wants to be a director when he grows up," says Biana. The friend is Rowland Ellis, a 2003 Young Filmmakers Competition winner at the Austin Film Festival. "She found this ad for a 9- to 11-year-old girl of Middle-Eastern descent, who rides well. They called us and said that Disney was looking for Biana because it fit my description so perfectly well. I was 11 then and I had a horse, I had been riding for a while, and my dad is from the Middle East. So the next day, the Ellis family came over to my barn and filmed an audition tape of me riding my horse, and sent that in to Disney. And then, after a few auditions more, that's about it," Biana says modestly. "Two weeks later, I was on the plane to go to Africa."

Although Biana makes her entry into movies sound so happenstance, so fortunate, in reality she had been the object of an international search. Young Black Stallion producer Fred Roos had casting directors throughout the world searching for just the right girl. A legendary casting director himself, Roos has worked closely with Francis Ford Coppola throughout his career, and cast such movies as The Godfather and American Graffiti, the breakout films in the early careers of Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams, and Harrison Ford, to name a few. Fred Roos has an impeccable eye for noticing young talent. But he was having a hard time with this one.

Biana Tamimi

"I wanted to try to cast actors who were Arab or part-Arab," he explains. "I needed a girl about 11 or 12 who could ride great and be pretty enough to be on the screen for 50 minutes. ... I looked at girls here in the L.A. area, actors and nonactors. I got a search going in South Africa, which was near where we were going to be shooting. I had a casting person in Capetown searching -- Johannesburg, London, and New York, also. I had my casting people here covering the whole United States by posting on Web sites. Tapes would come in, and you could usually tell in the first 20 seconds if somebody was in the ballpark or not. We would look at them every couple days. It was getting closer and closer to the start time and we still hadn't found anybody. I was going to have to compromise my plan and maybe cast an American girl passing as Arabian.

"Then one evening a tape came in from Austin. I threw this tape on, and in the first 30 seconds I said, 'Wait a minute, I think we may have something here.' My gut told me in that first 30 seconds that this was going to be the girl. There was this 11-year-old girl riding her horse around a show ring, wearing her equestrian outfit and her helmet, and then she gets off the horse, and stands next to it and says, 'My name is Biana Tamimi, and this is my horse, Buddy, and I am half-Palestinian and half-Mexican, and I've been riding for seven years, and I would love to be in a Black Stallion movie.'"

From that point, things moved quickly. A scene was faxed to Biana to tape, Roos saw potential in her performance, and the Disney execs flew Biana and her mom, Elizabeth, to L.A. for more tests and interviews. "This little peanut who's never been to L.A., never been on a movie-studio lot, let alone Disney, has to walk in to see these Disney execs and go through a little interview," Roos says. "Afterward, they said, 'OK, let's do it.' By this time my director [Simon Wincer, of Lonesome Dove fame] was already in South Africa, so he had to take it on faith. Of course, I've done this a few times. We let them go back to Austin to pack, and the very next day fly all the way to Capetown to start prepping, and horse-training, and riding."

If you're ready to go see Young Black Stallion when it opens across the country on Dec. 25, put some gas in your car, because you're going to have to drive to San Antonio or Dallas or Houston. To understand the reasons why the movie won't be screening in Austin's IMAX Theatre in the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, we turned to Jim Walker, the museum's director of theatres. "The main problem is the timing," he says. "We first heard about this movie in late June or early July of this year, and by that point we actually had everything set through March of next year as far as our schedule.

"Partly, that's just the way the IMAX industry works, but also as a student destination we have groups making reservations nine months in advance. We were really interested in this film, but the notice was too late for a Christmas opening," he continues. "We've been trying to tell them we need as much notice as possible, and there are other folks doing the same thing. That was one of the issues with the Matrix film that came out recently in IMAX. I just received notice today that they're going to be making the next Harry Potter film in IMAX, but it's going to open in May and unfortunately, we've already set our schedule through September. They have their decades of experience with the traditional cinema industry, and the way we operate is a little bit different. I've actually seen Young Black Stallion: It's a really great movie. We'd like to show it at some point and hopefully we'll be able to."

If you don't get to see Biana in the movie, you still have an opportunity to see the young star on TV. She will be gracing the Disney float in the Rose Parade next week. Sometimes life can be a bed of roses.