Movies Similar to Notes from Sheepland

The Story of the Weeping Camel(2003)

When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.

Hirten und Herden in der Pußta(1943)

Short film about shepherds in the Puszta

Wolves Return(2019)

Wolves divide and fascinate us. 150 years after they were driven to extinction in Central Europe, they are returning slowly but inexorably. Are they dangerous to humans? Is it possible to coexist? Using Switzerland as a point of departure, where wolves have returned in the very recent past, this documentary sheds light on the wolf situation in Austria, eastern Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, and even Minnesota, where freely roaming packs of wolves are more common sight.

Arkadia

In a world where farming is mechanized and farm animals are fed with products coming from across the globe, a young shepherd is trying to keep his practice sustainable by using ancestral ways to raise his flock.

Schafzucht im schottischen Hochland - Schur und Auktion(1980)

Before shearing, done with electric devices and hand shears, lambs are separated from the flock. The lambs are not yet shorn but dipped in a disinfectant, parasiticidal liquid prescribed by law. For the auction, held in autumn, the sheep for sale are loaded on special trucks and transported from the pasture to the public sale.

Brotherhood(2022)

Jabir, Usama and Uzeir are three young brothers in a Sunni family of shepherds. Since childhood, their father Ibrahim has rigidly trained them in the principles of the Quran and has filled their minds with stories of the Bosnian War.

The Garden of Stones(1976)

Secrets and mysteries lose power when they are spread too widely. This is what the villagers discover when they invade an old man's vision-inspired shrine to the namelessly holy.

The Shepherds of Berneray(1981)

In 1980, Jack Shae and Allen Moore, two ethnographic filmmakers from Harvard University, moved their families to the island of Berneray in the Outer Hebrides. Over the course of 18 months they documented the everyday lives and struggles of the crofters they lived among, whom were even then a vanishing breed. The film is in English and Gaelic. This carefully observed documentary by filmmakers Jack Shae and Allen Moore is a poetic ethnographic film in the style of their mentor, Robert Gardner (“Dead Birds”). It follows the rhythm of life on a wind-swept island in the Outer Hebrides through the four seasons and in the filmmakers’ observation of the day-to-day struggles of a vanishing society we see the deep-time legacy of their kind. The film is in English and Gaelic.

The Seasons(1975)

The last collaboration of Artavazd Peleshian and cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov is a film-essay about Armenia's shepherds, about the contradiction and the harmony between man and nature, scored to Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

Shepherds' Journey Into The Third Millenium(2002)

Director Erich Langjahr follows several of the last remaining shepherds in Switzerland, on the cusp of the third millennium. How does one of the oldest human means of subsistence survive into the modern age? At an unhurried pace, he captures the shepherd, his sheep, his dogs and his mules as they trudge across snow-covered fields, climb mountain passes and cross highways. The sheep have to be cared for all year round and the life of a shepherd is physically demanding. Shepherds stay outdoors, or in small huts and caravans – often in places inaccessible by car. During their long periods away from home, their families expand and their children grow up. But they wouldn’t have it any other way; being a shepherd is a very conscious life choice. One of them puts it like this: “I just can’t sit still. As long as my health allows me I’ll always be on the go. No matter where in the world, I’d like to be on the go forever.”

The Shepherdess of the Glaciers(2016)

She is one of the last shepherdesses who still lives with her flock in the heights of the Gya-Miru valley in Ladakh. At the age of 50, Tsering is the youngest in her village to drive her 350 goats and sheep at the expense of transhumance in this region of the Himalayas, located between 4000 and 6000 meters above sea level. A harsh and precarious life, often solitary, mishandled by difficult climatic conditions and a sometimes hostile nature, which does not prevent this tiny bit of woman to sing, laugh and ... philosophize.

Man's First Friend(2018)

He has shared our lives for 20,000 years. Along the way, he has helped us find food, kept our livestock, protected us from our enemies, guided us in extreme conditions, and saved us from peril. Now, he comforts us, relieving loneliness and helping us cope with old age. How did dogs come about?

School of Hope(2020)

In the vast expanse of desert East of Atlas Mountains in Morocco, seasonal rain and snow once supported livestock, but now the drought seems to never end. Hardly a blade of grass can be seen, and families travel miles on foot to get water from a muddy hole in the ground. Yet the children willingly ride donkeys and bicycles or walk for miles across rocks to a "school of hope" built of clay. Following both the students and the teachers in the Oulad Boukais Tribe's community school for over three years, SCHOOL OF HOPE shows students Mohamed, Miloud, Fatima, and their classmates, responding with childish glee to the school's altruistic young teacher, Mohamed. Each child faces individual obstacles - supporting their aging parents; avoiding restrictions from relatives based on traditional gender roles - while their young teacher makes do in a house with no electricity or water.

A shepherd's affair(1997)

Suspense and romance between Jewish and Druze ranchers in the Golan Heights.

Desert Killer(1953)

Desert Killer is a 1952 short film directed by Larry Lansburgh about a hunter tracking a sheep-killing mountain lion. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, One-Reel.

Sheep Dog(1939)

Tom Jones, a shepherd who lived in one of the Ystradfechan Cottages at Old Farm, Treorchy, was employed by the Ocean Coal Company who owned the land above ground and coal (the Park and the Dare Collieries) beneath. A farrier who lived in the adjoining cottage tended to all the Park and Dare pit ponies. Tom Jones was known world-wide as the “Wonder Shepherd” for his remarkable skills as an animal trainer which, together with his concern for his flock, are recorded here.

Ovčiarskou cestou(2021)

Sonaggios(2025)

In the Sardinian town of Tonara, where the ancient art of crafting cowbells teeters on the edge of extinction, a family battles to preserve their heritage, passing down skills to a new generation while grappling with personal struggles and the pull of modernity. English subtitles.

Nightshave(2024)

A narrator recounts a story about his missing friend, the downfall of a sheep shearing gang and sightings of a hairy beast in 1980s rural New Zealand.

The Shepherdess

“The shepherdess” is a short ethnographic film inspired by Joyce, an 80 year old woman who has spent her whole life farming in Eastern Ontario. While this film is largely centred on Joyce’s narrative about her life, it is also about Joyce’s flock of about 20 Suffolk ewes, the filmmaker, and the relationships between these actors.