A 13-year-old girl stands proud in the mountains of western Mongolia, cradling the eagle she has trained to hunt. She is carrying on a legacy that has defined this region for centuries.

But the girl, Aisholpan Nurgaiv, is also challenging a tradition. Though she is not the first female eagle hunter—there’s evidence of female eagle hunters from as early as tenth-century Persia according to a report by Stanford University researcher Adrienne Mayor, and National Geographic photographed Princess Nirgidma of Mongolia with her hunting eagle in 1932—Nurgaiv is the first Mongolian woman to compete in the country’s Golden Eagle Festival.

These images of Nurgaiv, by photographer Asher Svidensky, went viral in 2014. Now Nurgaiv is the star of a new documentary, The Eagle Huntress, which charts her efforts to train her eagle and compete against men on a national level. The film, which is executive-produced and narrated by Star Wars star Daisy Ridley, premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and is scheduled for U.S. release October 28 by Sony Pictures Classics. (National Geographic)