In 2024 Bella and Nikola finished production of their first feature documentary film, Unega Tales of the Guardians. After spending nearly 14 months in production, the team debuted their film at the 2024 Sun Valley Film Festival. The film is an eye-opening journey into the treatment of Livestock Guardian Dogs in Blaine County and the rest of Idaho. Featuring in-depth interviews with political leaders, animal rights activists, ranchers and members of the rescue organization - the movie is changing minds and bringing attention to an important cause.
Unega Tales of the Guardians
In Idaho, and in many parts of the world, Livestock Guardian Dogs, such as Great Pyrenees, Anatolian Shepherds and Akbash, are used to move and protect sheep and livestock.
Within Blaine County, these dogs are primarily used to protect sheep in the treacherous Idaho mountain ranges. Often times, these majestic animals are left behind by ranchers and abandoned once the sheep have moved on.
Unega Mountain Dog Rescue, goes out and rescues these dogs that have been abandoned and forgotten. They are given love, care, food and rehabilitated to either be adopted out to a family, or return to a new farm to continue working.
Our film follows Tiffany Larson and her team as they work to change the laws in Idaho that surround the Livestock Guardian Dogs, and their relentless efforts to save as many working dogs as they can.
Watch the official
Unega Tales of the Guardians Trailer now
timeline of our documentary
June 2021
In June of 2021 we were introduced to Tiffany Larson and Unega Mountain Dog Rescue. Our friend, and later on Executive Producer, Lisa Carlson, asked us to create a short video for the newly established nonprofit in Bellevue, Idaho.
After spending three days with the team at Unega and learning about the plight of the dogs, we had the content we needed to create a video for public awareness and information about the rescue.
This was the start of our relationship with the organization and the first time we fell in love with the Great Pyrenees and Akbash breeds.
november 2021
In November of 2021 we rescued our first dog from Unega Mountain Dog Rescue. Her name was Mama Fey, an eight year old Great Pyrenees and Akbash mix, who was abandoned on top of Iron Mountain with her one remaining puppy. Mama Fey and Baby Una, the sole remaining puppy, both came home to live in Washington State
We continued being educated about what happens to these dogs when they are left behind and now had first-hand experience about the recovery process that these dogs go through when they are rescued, from both an emotional and physical standpoint.
Mama Fey was the inspiration behind our film and was the catalyst behind our wanting to tell her story, and the stories of dogs like her and the ones who never made it off the mountain range.
August 2022
In August of 2022, another dog from Unega Mountain Dog Rescue found his way into our lives. Sunny was adopted by a family in Kirkland, but despite everyone’s best efforts, it was not the right fit for him.
Sunny came to us as a foster and ended up staying as a full-time member of the family. Sunny is a Great Pyrenees Australian Shepherd Dog mix who was rescued from a gas chamber kill shelter in Utah. He came to Unega and lived on the rescue until making his way West to Washington.
This was another example of a dog that had little to no hope of future or happiness, but was saved. Our pack grew and we now had two dogs from Unega, only furthering our connection to the rescue and dedication to sharing the stories of these great dogs.
November 2022
November of 2022 was the first time that we rolled cameras and began recording for our film. The goal was to create a documentary that goes into detail about why Unega Mountain Dog Rescue exists, the treatment of the Livestock Guardian Dogs in Idaho and why the laws need to change.
In Idaho, Great Pyrenees, Akbash, Anatolian Shepherd, Maremma Sheepdogs and all other Livestock Guardian Dogs are legally classified as livestock, meaning they have no protections from animal cruelty as all other dogs do.
We began putting together the story and filming b-roll shots of the rescue, the dogs and the team members at Unega.
December 2022
After several filming trips to Idaho, we fell in love with yet another dog from Unega Mountain Dog Rescue. A massive 125 pound Great Pyrenees Anatolian Shepherd by the name of Bubba made his way into our hearts and lives.
Now with three dogs from Unega, we were completely in love with everything Great Pyrenees and were committed to making our film. With each trip, we continued filming b-roll and supplemental footage while capturing all the small details of day-to-day life at the rescue and the way in which Tiffany, Nicole and Bryce interact with the dogs.
May 2023
Our film was starting to take shape and the three piece narrative movement was developing. In May of 2023 we sat down with industry experts, adopters, and other key members of Unega Mountain Dog Rescue. This was one of the most important trips we took since the documentary story needed to be told by our interviewees.
With six of our seven interviews wrapped up, the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place and we were able to begin editing and telling our story the way we imagined.
October 2023
After hundreds of hours of work we had a project that was ready to be viewed. We submitted to the Sun Valley Film Festival with the full story and professional coloring completed. Our composer was working on the original score taking our notes and ensuring that all the important moments of the film had proper audio cues.
The documentary timeline was completed and the feature was 87 minutes in length. The film was submitted to the Sun Valley Film Festival and was under consideration for the 2024 festival.
February 2024
In February of 2024, all of our work came to fruition as we were accepted to the 2024 Sun Valley Film Festival. We screened our movie on opening day of the film festival to a completely sold out audience at the Sun Valley Opera House.
The movie was incredibly well received, with audiences asking for an encore showing for all those who could not make the first showing.
Unega Tale of the Guardians has since been submitted to multiple other film festivals and has had showing in Boise, Idaho and Bellevue, Washington.
2024 & Beyond
The film has been submitted to numerous film festivals and we await to hear where we have been accepted. We are currently looking to explore our options for distribution since the amount of attention that the film has garnered has been nothing short of incredible. We hope to secure some form of distribution rights and get the film to as many people as possible, to share the story of these dogs with audiences around the world.
If you would like more information about the film or would like to discuss distribution rights, please reach out to us today!
For more Behind The Scenes videos from the creation of the film, visit our YouTube page where we documented every aspect of the filmmaking journey.
“We set out to make the best film that we could because our dogs depended on it, the dogs that were at the rescue depended on it, and all the dogs that never made it off the mountain depended on it. we knew it had to be special and we gave it everything we could to make it unforgetable.”
— Nikola Lakic