This charming docudrama from the makers of The Story Of The Weeping Camel, features spirited six-year-old Mongolian girl Nansal (Nansal Batchuluun), who discovers a stray dog in a cave, and brings the animal home to her parents.

Mother and father fear the mutt has bee n raised by wolves and therefore poses a danger to their livestock. They forbid their daughter from having any contact with the animal.

Nansal names her new pal Zochor (Spot) and defies her father by continuing to raise the dog. When the family moves on to a new camp far across the valley, Nansal must decide whether to risk her father's wrath by smuggling Zochor in with their belongings, or bid a tearful farewell to her four-legged friend.

Well, photogenic and endearing it may be, but that's pretty much the summary of the 89 minutes. Billed as a children's film, it would try the patience of the average Western sprog. Unlike the frenetic daftness of most contemporary American output, there are long pauses, little reliance on incidental music and it has an innocence that is a world away from the over-the-radar smut that occasionally features in U-rated features such as Over the Hedge (below).

Much of the film is pitched at an audience able to reflect on themes such as cultural upheaval (the nomadic parents fear it will not be long before they succumb to urbanisation), the precociousness of childhood, and the over-arching presence of death.

While never morbid, and overall life-affirming, the story starts with an animal being buried at twilight, with Nansal's father telling her: "Everything dies, yet nobody is dead", and, as with any rural society, there is an acceptance of the fragility of existence shortly before the end, as the family dismantle their yurt and prepare to travel in convoy to new pastures, they thank the landscape for allowing them to spend the summer feeding from it.

The Mongolian belief in the cycle of life, death and rebirth is even echoed in the footage of cheese-making, according to director Byambasuren Davaa, who features much that is mundane and simple: embroidery, collecting dung and tending the flocks.

The Yellow Dog refers to a folk tale which is only incidental to the story. In fact, the film is less concerned with Zochor than with the growing self-awareness of Nansal and her little siblings.

It is also, sadly, a snapshot of a society that is unlikely to survive the pressures of the hectic 21st century.