Marie De Roy

In 2003, a German film crew followed a nomadic family in Mongolia's Gobi Desert. The film, The Story of the Weeping Camel, was nominated for an Oscar. A mother camel had rejected her newborn after a brutal two-day labour. Without her milk, the calf would die. The family knew one option. They sent their two young sons on a journey across the desert to find a musician who could perform a ritual called Hoos, a chanting ceremony passed down for centuries specifically for this moment. The musician came. The ritual was performed. The mother camel wept real tears and turned to her calf for the first time. The film crew had gone to document a way of life. They had no idea they would capture that. UNESCO added the Hoos ritual to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2015, alongside flamenco, the Mediterranean diet, and the art of Neapolitan pizza making.