37 Uses for a Dead Sheep

Hopkins’ playful anthropological study sees members of the central Asian tribe of the Pamir Kirghiz reenacting episodes of their history even as their future as a cohesive ethnic group seems highly jeopardised. Affectionate and engaged, the film traces an extraordinary century of political shifts and geographic displacement in tandem with an observational account of everyday contemporary life. Hopkins himself is a very visible presence – not least when attempting to remember and list, in the local language, the full titular repertoire of sheep-usage under the beady eye of an elder – and his editorial position raises a potent raft of concerns without simply bemoaning the fact of change.