Sarah Konoski

that he could have really done to change the circumstance.

But, yeah, he went into himself for sure and Buttvolt was, I don't know, he was a bit sort of out of his depth in some ways too.

It just hit home and maybe confirmed to him in some ways that perhaps this tradition might be on its last legs and that maybe the city was maybe a more attractive option.

Yeah, it does break you down a little bit.

And, you know, I was in some ways obviously excited to capture the boy, the initiation of these boys in this ancient pathway to manhood tradition, but I didn't expect it to be as much an initiation for me.

For myself and the crew, we went in pretty naive.

If I'm honest, we sort of just loved the world and the story and there was something, you know, big and romantic about it.

So we just sort of maybe didn't prepare as much as we should.

So, look, I was devastated as horses started to die and quite emotional because you get to know them.

They're part of the family.

You know, you might not remember every face of those thousands of horses, but often you do.

It's like, oh, that's the one that Sagana was riding just a couple of days ago.

And so, yeah, it made me homesick at times at the worst moments, at the coldest moments or the moments of grief and where...

We're also sort of, I don't know, we were all grief sponges for each other, the crew and the herders.

And it was just about surviving and being as pragmatic as you could about it just to get through.

Zud, as they call it, D-Z-U-D, means great destroyer.

And it kind of just sounds like a wrecking ball of just white noise.

You can't think.

You can't see.

Maybe you could see your hand in front of you.