DESCRIPTION

Our story happened in FengNing County, Hebei Province locates near Beijing where large areas of protection forest are built to ease the sand storm problem in Beijing area. So both ‘pasturing prohibition' and ‘returning farmland to forest' are carried out there by the government.
We focus on a shepherd whose farmlands were all confiscated with little payment. He knows well about the pasturing prohibition and how pasturing does harm to the environment. But as a single, helpless and illiterate shepherd, he has to herd sheep to make a living, though against laws and morality. Thus being vigilant to everyone, escaping and protecting his beloved sheep from supervising teams become his preoccupation. We kept his accompany for a period to discover aspects of his daily life, for instance, How does he herd sheep every day, his relationship with sheep, the conflict against supervising teams and his past.
Additionally, it turns out to be that supervising teams catch sheep only for money. Every time after charging for it they send sheep back, announcing shepherds to blame. Being in such a dilemma, the shepherd couldn't tell where his future is.
According to investigation, there are dozens of shepherds like him. We can’t help asking: is our environment can only be protected at the cost of several people’s interest? Does conflict really exist between pasturing and building forest or is it due to drawbacks of the enforcing of policy? That's what we want to find out and tell audiences in shooting our film.
在直线距离天安门88公里的河北省丰宁县，为了缓解京津地区的沙尘问题开展了大片植树造林工程，与此同时，丰宁全县禁牧。
对于一个以放羊为生的羊倌，这不仅直接导致了羊群数量骤减与随之导致的收入下降，还有从此开始与禁牧大队的你追我藏。因此摄制组的采访与接近，从一开始就困难重重。
从清晨的接羊点数，赶羊进沟，到傍晚的送羊入圈，羊倌与人相处的时间远少于和羊群共度的相伴，放羊，是一个羊倌生活的全部。而禁牧之后，躲避与警惕成为了羊倌身上挥不去的阴影。
放牧与植树造林真的存在冲突吗？禁牧大队真的是为了保护树林吗？在羊倌的回答中，这些问题的答案若隐若现，但镜头里真实呈现而无可辩驳的，是一个被政策挤压到生存边缘的牧羊人，孤独地走在草原上。
采用偷拍方式一步步接近羊倌，全程跟拍一整天，直到他愿意对着镜头说出自己的家，自己的地，和不知道在何处的未来。