The Wolves Always Come at Night

From the sands of the Gobi to the sprawl of the city, this sweeping hybrid documentary follows a Mongolian family on a journey of displacement and adaptation.

When their generational herding life is upended by climate change, a nomadic Mongolian couple are forced to leave their idyllic desert community and resettle in the city. Along with their four children, the pair struggle to adapt to the challenges of urban life, searching for meaning and stability amid profound displacement.

With her second self-described “docu-feature”, Australian filmmaker Gabrielle Brady blurs the line between documentary and drama – an audacious hybrid of observation and re-creation that gives her storytelling a dreamlike touch, akin to magical realism. Breathtakingly photographed and told with tenderness, The Wolves Always Come at Night draws on the depths of its quietly captivating subjects, approaching this story in a simultaneously intimate and expansive way that elevates one family’s struggle into a tale with global implications.

The Wolves Always Come at Night is Australia’s entry for this year’s Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.