On the wintry steppes on the border of China and Mongolia, Saina, a herdsman by day and horseback performer by night, confronts the crumbling of a world he once knew.
Watch TrailerA frigid winter on the Mongolian steppe, an untimely snowstorm aggravated the lives of a pregnant herder and her 8-year-old daughter: the missing flock of sheep, the unborn child, the absent husband, traces of wolves…… everything led the mother and daughter to places they’ve never been.
Watch TrailerA young, ambitious anthropology PhD student travels to a remote site in Inner Mongolia, where an unspoken closeness with her local guide collapses her academic objectivity, plunging her into the complex, ethically murky dynamic between observer and observed.
Xiaoxuan Jiang is a writer-director born in Inner Mongolia, China. Jiang received her BFA Summa Cum Laude in Film & TV from New York University. Her narrative short Graveyard of Horses (2022) won the NETPAC Award at the Busan International Short Film Festival, the Grand Prix Award at the Hiroshima International Film Festival, and Best Student International Short at the 46th Denver Film Festival.
Her first feature, To Kill a Mongolian Horse (2024), world premiered at Venice Days and was officially selected by Busan IFF, Hong Kong IFF, Filmfest Hamburg, São Paulo IFF, Mar del Plata IFF, and won the Yusr Cinematic Achievement Award at Red Sea Film Festival, Golden Taiga Award at Spirit of Fire Debut Festival, Critics Award at D’A Festival de Cinema de Barcelona, Jury Award at Sprouts IFF, and the Firebird Award at Hong Kong IFF.
Her second feature in development, Vulnerable Observer, is the recipient of the Hubert Bals Fund for script development and has won the IDP Award at the Hong Kong–Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF).