CALL ME MULE: Salem Film Fest

Showing at the National Parks Service Visitor Center  for Salem Film Fest

John Sears, who calls himself Mule, has been roaming the western United States with his three mules for over thirty years. The 65-year-old and his animals sleep outside, claiming the right to move freely. Despite arrests, fines, incarcerations and involuntary institutionalization, he keeps on fighting to maintain his nomadic lifestyle.

Bemoaning the loss of open space, urban sprawl and our dependence on the automobile, Mule advocates a simpler way of life in harmony with nature. CALL ME MULE documents Mule’s arduous 500-mile journey to deliver a personal message to the Governor of California in defense of his way of life and his right to choose it.

Regardless of how we personally feel about Mule as an individual, the issues he raises concern all of us: preserving open space, individual freedom of movement, access to public land and the system’s treatment of people living outside society’s norms.

A Q&A with Directors John McDonald and Nina Schwanse follows screening at the National Park Service Visitor Center.