Centre for Pastoralism | Desi Oon | 2025
Wool Starts to Speak / Centre for Pastoralism "Desi Oon"
An animation where wool itself starts talking—that alone is enough to grab you. This stop-motion film was shot in India over more than a year spent with shepherds, using real Deccani wool. It won a jury award at Annecy 2025, and it's also being talked about in Industry Craft at Cannes 2026.
The problem
India is one of the world's leading sheep-raising countries, yet it relies on imports for most of its wool. The wool of the black Deccani sheep from the Deccan Plateau has long been used to make Gongadi blankets, but it's been pushed aside by imported wool and synthetic fibers and is at risk of being forgotten. Centre for Pastoralism has spent more than five years working to rebuild this wool economy.
The insight
The one given a voice here isn't a person or a shepherd—it's the wool itself. "From a cultural cornerstone to a forgotten byproduct": what unfolds is the material's own life story. It's also layered as a tribute to Balumama, a real shepherd who protected the Deccani sheep.
The idea
They made it as stop-motion, moving wool and puppets by hand, because they wanted the connection between material and craftsmanship to show up directly on screen. Director Suresh Eriyat actually walked alongside a flock of sheep, and afterward the whole team joined the shepherds and filmed with real wool for nearly six months.
What happened
After being shown at an exhibition in Bengaluru in February 2025, it was also released on YouTube. It won a jury award at Annecy 2025 and was shortlisted in Film Craft at Cannes Lions 2025.
Afterthought
A material that's supposed to be just a tool becomes the one telling the story. That alone is enough to turn both the forgetting of wool and its remembering into a real narrative. Giving a voice back to something forgotten—this must be exactly what that kind of work is about.
