Director: Chen Nan

Synopsis

In the howling wind of the Pamir Plateau, the Kirgiz youth Temirbek takes the leather glove handed to him by his grandfather Kurmash Hutman, the only national-level inheritor of the falconry tradition, an intangible cultural heritage, in Akqi County. On his 18th birthday, Temirbek gets the first eagle of his life and names it "White Shoulder". A hunting eagle returns to the sky after five to seven years of training: this is a pact the Kirgiz people and eagles have kept for 4,000 years. Five years pass in the blink of an eye, and Temirbek is about to say goodbye to White Shoulder, his first eagle. As he unties the last leather strap from White Shoulder's talons, its amber eyes reflect not only the snow peaks but also a people's thousand-year covenant with the sky. True inheritance is not tying the eagle to your hand, but planting reverence for the sky in your heart so that every wind finds its way home. In Akqi County, "China's Home of Falconry", countless eagles have returned to the sky, and the hands of a generation born after 2000 are lifting a new sun.