Every summer, the Shawaks, a nomadic tribe from eastern Turkey, leave their villages for the high pastures. Entire flocks of sheep and goats and their families climb aboard rented trucks, which are emptied at the foot of the mountains. Then begins a perilous ascent: the heavily-laden mules skid along the snowy slopes, in constant danger of collapsing under their burden. When they finally reach the heights, the Shawaks pitch the tents in which they will spend the warm season.
By following the harsh daily life of the semi-nomadic shepherds of Anatolia over the course of a year, Kazim Öz paints an intimate and poetic portrait of a people who live to the rhythm of the seasons and the life of their animals, leaving their stone houses after the birth of their calves and returning only with the first rains.
