37 Uses for a Dead Sheep

As far as I'm concerned, you really can't go wrong with a film about yurts, yogurt, nomadic tribes and the shifting borders of the 'Stans' in Central Asia. I put my pants on one leg at a time.

37 Uses, is not so much Hopkins' film but a collaborative work, made with the Pamir Kirghiz tribe, a splendid historical document. The film begins in the 19th c. with the Super Powers divvying up Central Asia, a region that since the inventions of salt, silk, and opium remains one of the hottest properties on earth. We watch as beautiful nostalgic footage is fabricated through the tribe's reenactment, aided by the expert Kirghiz art direction of Muhammet Ekber Kutlu, son of the last Kirghizian khan, Rahman Qul.

In case you weren't paying attention during Central Asian History, the Pamir Mountains are the North Westernmost range of the Greater Himalaya, but are the feather in the cap of what is now known as 'the Stans'. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Kirghizstan and Kazachstan. Did I forget anyone? It's all about where you think the center of the world is situated, and that is what has been keeping the Kirghizians on the move, beyond their home turf pastures. The Pamir Kirghiz, no strangers to hardship inflicted by Super Powers, have (partially) avoided ethnic cleansing by doing what they do best, being nomadic.