THE WOLVES ALWAYS COME AT NIGHT

Watch The Trailer

Storyline (warning: spoilers)

Documentarian Gabrielle Brady immerses herself in the act of collaborative storytelling, working alongside her subjects to bring their truth to life in an act of radical hybrid filmmaking and in her latest film, The Wolves Always Come at Night, we follow Davaa (Davaasuren Dagvasuren) and Zaya (Otgonzaya Daashzeveg), parents to four children who work as nomadic goat herders in the Bayankhongor region of Mongolia.
Their land endures harsh winters and sharp summers, and as we witness in the film, receives the brunt of the impact of storms that roll in from the Gobi Desert. It’s these increasing storm events that force Davaa to question whether he will have to engage in the culture-disconnecting act of relocating his family to the city for work.
Brady bookends the film with shots of Davaa riding his magnificent stallion, unkempt mane and all, across the plains, conjuring the sight of the shepherd of the land at flight, and in the process, this collaborative team hammers home the notion that this is yet another form of generational culture eking out of existence as a result of climate driven migration.
The Wolves Always Come at Night leaves you with a sombre feeling of helpless inevitability, and maybe this is the cruellest result of the film; previously a documentary like this would illicit a tortured response where audiences would say ‘we simply must do something to stop this from happening’, and while many may protest or feel their vote will change the world for the better, the reality is that we have each been forced into a state of inaction and servitude, reluctantly drawn into the creep of capitalism simply to keep the machine moving.
The sub-genre of climate change documentaries has proliferated throughout the years, yet few filmmakers are assessing the intertwined complexity of the catastrophe in the way that Gabrielle Brady does. Powerful collaborative filmmaking like this is a rarity to be treasured.