Director Byambasuren Davaa’s first feature – co-directed as a film school project when studying in Munich – follows a nomadic family in the Gobi Desert. A precious camel calf has been rejected at birth by its mother, so the family send their sons on a journey to fetch a shaman. Will the shaman’s song cause the camel to weep, allowing it to accept its calf? 

Sold to over eighty territories and garnering an Oscar nomination for best documentary, Weeping Camel was a sure-footed entry into filmmaking for Davaa. Her warmth and intimacy were there from the start, as well as a clear-eyed sense of how traditional culture rubs against modernity.