A young Mongolian family loses their livelihoods following a natural disaster. This docufiction provides a confronting look at their lives and proves that climate change can affect even the world's most remote areas.
With climate change steadily climbing towards calamitous heights, there’s a real danger that these ways of life can only exist in fictional daydreams.
The Wolves Always Come at Night 2024
This meditative and moving film examines the effects of global warming on a nomadic family’s once sustainable lifestyle. Combining documentary and fiction as in Island of the Hungry Ghosts (NZIFF 2018), Gabrielle Brady tells the story of a Mongolian couple, Daava and Zaya (credited as co-writers) who live a traditional life as goat herders in the Gobi Desert. Folk songs played throughout the film add warmth and character, as climate change brings natural disasters with ever-increasing frequency, and real life rivals the scary stories the children share.
After a final devastating sandstorm that wipes out their herd, Daava and Zaya have no choice but to move to the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar to start over. Their grief is palpable, but they remain resilient in the face of enormous change. An exquisite, melancholy ode to a lost way of life from this multi-award-winning filmmaker, sure to be a festival hit. — Madison Marshall