Anima

For thousands of years, humans and grazing animals moved with the seasons in search of pasture. On the flanks of the Pirin Mountains, the last true pastoralists continue this ancient practice as a way of life. Here, the paths are formed by dogs, shepherds, horses and sheep, moving together. Few people survive a whole summer in the alpine highlands, where human lives are as precarious as the lives of animals they care for - or who care for them. In 'Anima', Kapka Kassabova lives with one of these communities, experiencing the intensity, brutality, beauty and isolation of their existence over one summer. She witnesses the epic, orchestrated activity of transhumance - the seasonal movement of vast herds of sheep, along with shepherds and dogs.