Set against the background of barren expanses, Gobi Women’s Song immerses the viewer in a different world. It is a world in a transitional moment, one that has occurred in all cultures, which decides the future lives, environment and life style of its people. Five 21st century nomadic women share the rhythm of their harsh daily lives. They hum the song of the soul passed down from their grandmothers and at the same time deal with the pressing issues of today’s world.
Through interviews that span four years, the film captures the rhythms of the harsh daily life of Gobi women and their families. Life here depends on connection—connection with the environment, community, and family. The ground Gobi women live on is fragile, incapable of supporting agriculture. We see that they need to move 4-5 times a year to feed their animals and rest the pastures. In this way, they maintain a balance between themselves and their land.
We watch Gobi women make everything they need: felt from fleece sheared from their sheep, cheese, yoghurt, butter, and dried curds from their animal’s milk. Their staple, milk tea, comes from well water hand drawn up, carried by metal pail, heated by burning the dung collected from livestock. They milk their goats, horses, and camels. We learn that the tea itself, a brick of leaves and stems, comes from trading cashmere combed from their goats. Like our grandmothers before us, life asks everything of these women. There is no down- time. Nomadic life today is only possible because of hard-working women.
In this desolate and barren land, as beautiful as any on earth, we find that the dreams of Gobi women are like our own—they want their children to grow up and have a good life. They wish for good health. The women, true to their custom of hospitality, open their lives to us. They honor us with invitations to go to their land, go inside their homes, and their hospital. In this sensitive documentary, doctors, bone healers, and single women share their hopes and fears, their joy and laughter, their children, animals and even their births. As we get to know them, we hold them in our hearts. We relate to them. Yet, we learn that many factors are changing and we wonder what the future will bring them.
Director and Producer: Sas Carey; Editor: Dónal Ó'Céilleachair; Sound Design: Anna Halldórsdottir; Cinematographer: Joseph Spaid; Camera: L. Mendbayar and J. Nyamadorj
Funded in part by the Mongolian American Cultural Association, Sustainable Futures Fund with The Vermont Community Foundation, the Vermont Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Movie Trailer:
 |
  |
How to book a screening: The director is available to take this educational documentary on tour to colleges and universities. She offers a lecture and screening and an opportunity to meet with classes on Women's Studies, Anthropology, Complementary Healing, Sustainable Living, Central Asian nomads, and/or Mongolia. Honorarium plus expenses to be discussed. To book a screening by e-mail: sas@lifenergyheal.com Format: The film can be shown on DVD or VHS. 73min Documentary. Mongolia/USA LET Pictures ©2006. Schedule: On site for production of new film, In the Shadow of Shamans, until fall |
Director Statement:
In 2001 the sun came through the hole in the top of the ger the first morning of shooting Gobi Women's Song and the crew and I woke up in Manlai Sum, South Gobi. I knew—maybe more than ever in my life—that I was exactly where I was meant to be. It had taken me four years to get there. Four years since I got a jolt while meditating and knew I needed to make this film. It took three more twelve-hour trips over bumpy dirt tracks in the scorching hot sun to return to finish shooting the film—and continue following the women and families.
Viewer's Comment:
"While watching Gobi Women’s Song I noticed that Sas Carey has a wonderful way of communicating with people. All the Mongols in her presence seemed comfortable around her and really opened up about their private lives. From her warm and enthusiastic personality I was able to see the nomadic way of life in a much more personal level .... Her movie did not view the Mongolian nomads as a species to be studied and analyzed, but as people who happen to live a completely different lifestyle from the rest of the world." — Adeline B. (Student at Wittenberg College, Ohio)
Director Biography
Sas Carey, RN, M.Ed., is a holistic nurse and educator who evolved into a filmmaker and lecturer. From her work in medical-surgical nursing, counseling, drug and alcohol prevention, teen programs, women's health, and as a book author, she came upon her mission in life to integrate Eastern and Western health care. This took her to China and Mongolia in 1994. In 1995, she began her research in Traditional Mongolian Medicine with a three-month intensive course, which she documented on her 18-minute film, Steppe Herbs, Mare’s Milk and Jelly Jars: A Journey to Mongolian Medicine. Two years later, she worked as a Health Education consultant for the United Nations Development Programme. Since then, Sas has frequently traveled to Mongolia, set up five laboratories in rural Gobi Desert hospitals, taken vitamins to Dukha Reindeer herders, and shot Gobi Women's Song, a documentary on nomadic women and healers. She is director of Life Energy Healing School, where she uses Mongolian Medicine as a model for holistic health care. A mother and grandmother, Sas is dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding of nomadic women’s life and health.
Full resume available here.
LET Pictures © 2006
248 Washington St. Ext.
Middlebury, VT 05753