37 Uses for a Dead Sheep

A Central Asian tribe use film to trace their past

Directed by Ben Hopkins

The Pamir Kirghiz are a tribe of some 2,000 people from Afghanistan. For the last 27 years they have lived in exile in Eastern Turkey. In 2005 an Anglo-Turkish film crew arrives to work with them to tell their story

The film divides into a series of chapters, with revealing interviews with the Kirghiz, entertaining reconstructions shot in a variety of cinematic styles, and comic scenes of the interaction between the film crew and the community.

It is at once a historical document, an ethnographic record of a unique people, a portrait of the conflict between individual and globalised culture, and, a comic snapshot of the filmmaking process.