Poems for All Creatures: A Mongolian Filmmaker's Return
Looking Back at Hometown: After arriving in Germany, Dava is filled with curiosity about everything around her. For Mongolian filmmaker Byambasuren Davaa (referred to as Davaa hereafter), it was only after leaving Ulaanbaatar to pursue film studies in Germany that she slowly acquired a fresh viewpoint and feeling—one of reflecting on and reinterpreting her native land. It appears that a person truly understands their homeland only once they have departed from it, and the same applies to Davaa.
The surroundings, the comforts of modern life, the customs of the people, and the array of possibilities before her all flood her senses, stirring an intense thrill. This world is so vivid and diverse—utterly foreign to anything she has encountered. Yet, once the first wave of excitement subsides, Dava starts to sense an emptiness woven into this seeming extravagance. That emptiness, in the end, is the bond shared between humanity and the natural world.
According to Davva, who was interviewed by the German online film magazine artechock, nomads hold nature in respect and engage in communication with it. In contrast, those who are increasingly relocating to the urban jungle of concrete and steel are slowly losing that connection. Heating offsets cold weather, while air conditioning counters heat; in the city, daily existence is barely constrained by natural forces. This may appear convenient, yet it actually signifies that our bond with the Earth is being cut off.
Davva grew up in Mongolia, yet it was only after relocating abroad that she came to appreciate the richness of her nomadic heritage. The enduring values of her homeland are absent from contemporary Western culture, and this contrast gradually shaped her filmmaking, steering it increasingly toward the subject of nomadic life. Her movies consistently center on animals, a recurring element rooted in her upbringing within a nomadic community and one that distinguishes her work.
Davva believes that a film's strength comes from simplicity, and that belief is reflected in "Little Yellow Dog's Nest," his debut feature. The movie presents a plain story centered on animals, but this plainness does not reduce the appeal of its visual style or its underlying theme. One day, while playing by herself on a mountain, a young Mongolian girl named Nasa discovered a puppy. The puppy's endearing expression filled her with both happiness and sympathy, eventually causing Nasa to take the animal back to her home.
On the day of the summer pasture migration, Nasa had to say goodbye to her beloved puppy, for her father had forbidden her from keeping it, worried that it might lure wolves and endanger the sheep they reared at home. Crestfallen and helpless, she obeyed his command. But right then, an unexpected turn of events unfolded: during the journey, the family realized that Nasa's younger brother had vanished. In a panic, her father raced back to where they had started to look for him.
A foreboding feeling told him that vultures might carry his son away. Fortunately, the puppy left at the original spot managed to slip its leash and drive the vultures off from around Nasa's brother. It was thanks to the puppy that Nasa's brother was saved. Nasa plays games with the puppy. In Mongolian nomadic tribal belief, dogs rank second only to humans and are therefore treated with special reverence.
To Davaa, giving away or forsaking dogs signifies a decline of faith among nomadic communities, just as people steadily become more detached from their natural roots as modernization proceeds. Moreover, dogs carry spiritual importance, believed to be capable of detecting evil spirits and threats while serving as guardians of tents and families. Across the expansive grasslands, they are entrusted with watching over herds, repelling wolf packs, and upholding the tranquility and harmony of the household.
The daughter's deep attachment and unwillingness to give up the dog come to the fore when her father forbids her from keeping it, which forms the film's central conflict. The animal is eventually readmitted to the family, possibly after a dramatic occurrence like saving a child, signifying a resolution via the movie's symbolic artistic representation. Cloud shapes are observed.
Nasa Calls the Puppy. Through this story, Davaa’s core intention is to show that, within nomadic culture and likely beyond it, humans and animals should exist in a relationship defined by symbiosis, interdependence, and mutual respect. Animals ought not to be viewed simply as household pets; instead, they can serve as family members and companions, because they too are valuable beings with souls. This non-anthropocentric method of raising children means that those who grow up on horseback learn from an early age to hold nature in reverence and to respect all living things.
By living alongside animals day after day, people quietly come to share a rhythm of life built on unspoken trust and harmony with every creature. As a result, they develop, deep within themselves, a refined awareness of the many forms of life found in nature. The films of Nasa on Horseback Davaa carry us into the wide Mongolian steppe, giving us an opportunity to reconnect with the straightforward yet deep bond that ought to exist between humans and other beings.
While Davaa was studying film in Munich in 2000, she and her classmate Luigi Falorni co-created the documentary masterpiece "The Weeping Camel." Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2005, the film also received many special honors at international film festivals. With animals at its narrative core, the film, through Davaa's lens, reconnects us with a poetic and wise way of life that is increasingly scarce in modern society.
Set during a Mongolian nomadic family’s camel calving season, the narrative follows the mother camel’s rejection of her newborn calf, which leaves the family worried and without recourse. To address this crisis, they adopt an age-old custom: a ritualistic morin khuur (horsehead fiddle) performance intended for the mourning camel. Directed by Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni, the 2004 film is titled "The Weeping Camel", with the original German title "Die Geschichte vom weinenden Kamel".
Across the steppe, as the sorrowful tunes of the bowed string instrument resound, a wonder takes place. The mother camel's cheeks are soon wet with tears. Touched by the melody, she gradually bends down to touch her young with her nose. When the music draws to a close, she has embraced her calf fully, and for the first time it drinks from her. It is an intensely emotional scene, leaving the family overjoyed and relieved.
Mother Camel and Her White Calf: The story reveals that respect and understanding hold power not only among humans but also between humans and animals. Rather than using forceful punishment or restraint on the camel, the herders choose music—a soft, poetic, and culturally rich medium—to forge a spiritual connection with the animal.
Within nomadic culture, authentic moments that go beyond everyday experience and conventional understanding reveal a profound and mystical bond between humans and nature. Had such events not been captured in documentary form, some might dismiss them as overly dramatic or even implausible. Yet the way we coexist with the natural world can take on unique modes of communication and emotional resonance.
Grandmother Feeds the Lamb with a Cow's Horn In Davaa's footage, this moving narrative shows how nomads engage with life in a manner marked by reverence and gentleness. Rooted in tradition, their age-old lifestyle embodies profound wisdom—one that functions as emotional instruction and a philosophy of mutual coexistence. This invaluable legacy not only molds their interactions with the natural world and animals, but also subtly informs their core perspectives on existence, everyday practices, and moral principles.
Mother Among the Sheep Rice and needle. While the father and daughter move up the mountain at dawn, their silhouettes gradually emerge at the center of the frame. The pair is undertaking a farewell rite for the puppy they have lost. Her father's handling of the puppy's remains makes the daughter confused, and she asks why. He answers that this is so the puppy will be reborn as a human with a ponytail, rather than a dog with a tail.
Wolves raid Nasha's sheep pen, killing several sheep. Her father places the carcasses in the open wilderness as an offering to vultures, letting them complete the natural cycle. After a pause, he says, "All living things must die, but life continues." In that brief exchange, the girl gains her first lesson on life and death from her father—a profound realization.
Nasa A and the Grandmother. Heavy rain fell from the sky, and a kind grandma brought Nasah back to a tent for shelter. The grandma made warm milk for her, and while drinking it, Nasah listened closely to a story about a yellow dog that was reborn as a little girl with a ponytail. Curious, Nasah asked the grandma whether she herself would someday be reborn as a person.
Nasah made several attempts, but every one of them failed. Prior to that, the grandma had smiled without speaking, picked up a needle with her left hand and a bowl of rice with her right, and kept sprinkling the rice onto the needle to demonstrate for Nasah. She had then asked Nasah to do the same, saying, "If a grain of rice can stand on the tip of the needle, then tell me." After seeing Nasah's failures, the grandma smiled again and observed, " See, reincarnating as a human is just as difficult, which is why human life is so precious." Nasah reflected on her words.
Nomadic education does not depend rigidly on systematic teaching materials; instead, knowledge is transmitted through lived experience, embodying a natural philosophy in which "life is education." Davaa's films abound with such moments—where profound lessons are interwoven into everyday existence. The wisdom handed down across generations thrives precisely within these ancient traditions of oral storytelling and learning by lived demonstration.
The children, from their very early years, are steeped in nature: beneath the open sky, at one with animals, through the turn of seasons, amid grasslands and mountains, under earth and sky, in windstorms and starlight.
More than reading or counting, their earliest education centers on practical skills of the land—riding horses, collecting dried dung, aiding elders in cheese-making, herding sheep, reading pasture winds, listening to and working alongside cattle, studying cloud formations, and forecasting weather from the sky. At its core, this is learning to sense nature, cooperate with it, and sustain both its beauty and equilibrium. Such knowledge carries deep lessons: reverence for life, peaceful coexistence with the natural world, and profound regard for every being—animals, plants, and spirits.
During their seasonal migration, Nasha's father was moved to express his heartfelt gratitude: "Beautiful Hangai steppe, thank you for sheltering us." He observed how these verdant pastures had, once again, generously sustained his people through another season. Across the vast grassland, the river winds in elegant curves, resembling a white ceremonial scarf offered in tribute. O Mother Earth, you alone remain everlasting.
Perhaps we have long been accustomed to regarding all living beings from a vantage point of superiority; nonetheless, nomadic culture instructs us to cast off pride and discern the spiritual and sacred within animals and nature. This very respect and humility serve as the deepest basis for ecological civilization and sustainable development. Meanwhile, Nasha's mother's melodious voice rose in song: "We love you, Mother Earth—only you endure eternal.
Under the boundless sky, every creature bears its own name and purpose. Through her cinematography, Davaa has quietly imparted to us a philosophy that is abundant, sweeping, and deeply gentle, celebrating the grace of humans and nature coexisting in harmony. Indeed, regardless of whether one comes from a nomadic upbringing or not, reverence for nature and respect for life should be shared by all of humanity.
Reverence alone grants true sight, for every being carries a spirit. True education, rather than being bound to textbooks, must become a boundless journey into the world, experienced directly through life's pulse.