8 moving vignettes reveal vivid contrasts of 21st-century life among farmers/herders in Thailand’s northern mountains. Profound continuities of age-old traditions are countered by scattered but crucial technological benefits—telephones, tin roofs, the car leading a Buddhist procession through rice fields, the rifle an old man uses to scare intruders. Cattle-rustlers on motorcycles interrupt agricultural methods thousands of years old, but the loneliness of the elderly is punctuated by phone calls with city relatives. They share dependence upon nature, each other (and pets), but their temperaments vary: from the lone farmer pondering the sky with his dog, to a merry group of bicycling musicians visiting a temple. The vignettes, accompanied by the sounds of rain, threshing, and local musicians, are intercut with visually poetic takes focusing on timeless satisfactions: clouds, mountains, waving grain, the full moon under which children tell ghost stories inspired by the mysteries of birth and unexpected death. Awards/Festivals: Vienna International Film Festival 2006; Munich Film Festival 2007.