A teenage girl deals with a crisis of conscience in gun-toting rural Texas.

The teenage daughter of Christian goat farmers in rural Texas rebels against her arranged marriage in this half-fiction, half-documentary hybrid from Italian director Roberto Minervini, shot with non-professional actors performing in their real homes.

Sara is a young girl raised in a family of goat farmers. Her parents home-school their 12 children, rigorously following the precepts of the Bible. When Sara meets Colby, an amateur bull rider, she is thrown into crisis, questioning the only way of life she has ever known. In a stunning portrayal of contemporary America and the insular communities that dot its landscape, Stop the Pounding Heart is an exploration of adolescence, family and social values, gender roles, and religion in the rural American South.