A film of strikingbeauty, shot against a mountain panorama over four seasons, Descendantof the Snow Leopard is a cinematic ballad based on a Kirghiz folklegend, telling of the customs and exploits of an ancient tribe. Thehero is the hunter Kozhazhash, who excels in the courage and strengthneeded to meet nature's pitiless challenges and who is made a leader ofhis people. During one terrible year, a summer drought followed by abitter winter drives the animals to the high mountains, leaving thepeople on the brink of starvation. Kozhazhash seeks a way to keep hispeople alive without betraying the traditions of their ancestors and thelaws of nature. But he himself is betrayed, by human nature, whendespairing hunters wantonly take the lives of animals as they come totheir watering places. Director Tolomush Okeev has done much to bringattention and esteem to the Kirghiz cinema in the Soviet Union. He isbest known in the West for The Ferocious One (Lyuti, 1973), anotherharsh parable of man and nature and a favorite of PFA audiences.