It looks like you could put the “Made in America” stamp right on this film. Fire and brimstone preaching, down home American music, a dusty Western setting — these layers of traditional America get captured so well in The Backwater Gospel. And yet the film comes straight out of Denmark.

These nine minutes of grimly wonderful animation come to you courtesy of eight undergraduate students attending The Animation Workshop, located in Viborg, Denmark — an institution known for training fine animators throughout Europe.

Co-creator Bo Mathorne offers artistic insight into the fascinating making of the film, well worth the eight minutes:

Dan Colman edits Open Culture, which brings you the best free educational media available on the web — free online courses, audio books, movies and more. By day, he directs the Continuing Studies Program at Stanford University. You can find Open Culture on Twitter and Facebook