37 Uses for a Dead Sheep UK
2006, 86min.
Producer: Nikki Parrott, Natasha Dack, Script: Gary Clarke, Dir.: Ben Hopkins, Dir. of Phot.: Paul Lewis, Sound: Hasan Baran, Edit.: Marco Van Welzen.
The Pamir Kirghiz are a tribe of some 2,000 people from the Pamir region of Central Asia. For the last 27 years they have lived in exile in Eastern Turkey. In 2005 an Anglo-Turkish film crew arrives in their village to work with the tribe to tell their story. In a series of scenes divided into "chapters", we see revealing interviews with the Kirghiz, see exciting and entertaining reconstructions shot on film in a variety of different cinematic styles, and comic scenes of the interaction between the film crew and the community. During this process, we learn how the Pamir Kirghiz' antipathy to Communism drove them from the Soviet Union, then later from Maoist China, and finally from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to their current exile. And as the past is explored in interview and reconstruction, we see how the Pamir Kirghiz live today in modern Turkey. The film is a historical document, an ethnographical description of a unique people, a portrait of the conflict between an individual and the globalised culture, and also a comedy about the process of film-making.
Awards
Berlin IFF, 2006, Caligari Prize, BritDoc (Best British Documentary), HotDocs, 2006 (Best International Documentary), Canada.
| Hopkins, Ben Ben Hopkins
British filmmaker. Was born in Hong Kong. He studied at Oxford University and in Edinburgh, where he also directed his first stage productions. During his film studies course at the Royal College of Art in London from 1989-95, he made several short films, some of which won awards. His first feature film was Simon Magus.
Filmography
Nine Circles (1993), The Holy Time (1994), National Achievement Day (1995), Max Klapper (1996), Janice Beard 45 WPM (1999), Simon Magus (1999), The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz (2000), Footprints (2002), 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep (2006).
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