The Eternal Cycle of Life (documentary)

The Eternal Cycle of Life is a 2026 Swiss documentary film written, directed, and produced by Yadolah Dodge. It follows a full year in the life of "Chalte Hose", a small organic farm near Zurich run by Claudia Wanger and Nils Müller, tracing the farm's rhythm of birth, care, mating, slaughter, and renewal. The film presents this cycle as an expression of a broader philosophy of life and death, drawing on ideas associated with the Sufi poets Attar and Rumi, in which every ending is understood as the beginning of a new form of life.

Synopsis

Set on "Chalte Hose", a farm located not far from the city of Zurich, the film follows the rhythms of daily life there.Claudia Wanger has a deep love of horse riding but lacked a farm where her horses could roam freely; Nils Müller is a licensed farmer but did not own a farm of his own. A mutual family friend, Rosemarie, introduced the two, and in April 2011 they purchased Chalte Hose together. Since then, Claudia and Nils have transformed it into an organic farm specializing in meat production, and have documented their farming philosophy in a book.

The film follows Claudia and Nils through the rhythms of a full farming year: the birth of calves in spring, summer grazing under open skies, autumn rituals of preservation, and the stillness of winter. For three months each year the couple rents a bull, which roams freely with the herd, allowing natural mating and, in turn, the birth of new calves. Once a month, on a designated day, Nils climbs a tower with a specialized rifle to humanely put down a male cow; the entire process of preparing the meat is carried out by Nils and a friend, with every part of the animal preserved through different methods and sold as a variety of products in the family's village shop. This cycle unfolds across the farming year, from December to the end of November.

Themes

The film presents the farm not merely as a place of work but as a living expression of a Sufi understanding of existence, in which life is understood to move in an endless circle of birth, love, service, death, and return — an idea the film's promotional material links to the poetry of Attar and Rumi. Each animal on the farm is framed as part of this cycle: born into the world, sustained by the land, and, in time, released from life with what the filmmakers describe as dignity and gratitude, before returning to the farm in another form — grass, wildflower, or fertile soil — that nourishes the life that follows it.

The film's tagline material summarizes this idea in several variations, describing a world in which "every death becomes a flower, every season a turning of the soul," and in which what departs returns in subtler forms — grass, scent, colour, nourishment.

Literary treatment: "The Eternal Circle"

Alongside the documentary, Yadolah Dodge produced an accompanying literary piece titled The Eternal Circle, described as an art-film narrative weaving together themes of life, love, death, and renewal. Framed as a first-person reflection on witnessing a calf's birth, a mating between cows, and the monthly slaughter of an animal on the farm, the piece presents birth and death as inseparable threads in what it calls "the grand tapestry of existence," intended to lead the audience to reflect on the interconnectedness of life on the farm.

Background

Yadolah Dodge began filming at Chalte Hose to document the farming philosophy that Claudia and Nils had developed over almost fifteen years of running the farm, and which the couple had already set out in a book. The film was conceived as both a record of their daily practices and a meditation on the couple's approach to raising and ultimately slaughtering livestock.

Filming

Principal photography ran from April 2024 to March 2025 and produced approximately ten hours of footage. Material filmed for the documentary included interviews with Claudia and Nils; footage of the surrounding countryside and of the farm itself; the monthly slaughter of a cow, filmed over three days and takes, along with the complete process at the slaughterhouse; Claudia horse riding with friends; the daily life of the farm's cows and pigs; a party held for Nils's fiftieth birthday; the seasonal movement of cows to the mountains for summer and the farm during winter; communal mealtimes with farm workers; an interview with Fini, the family's babysitter; footage inside the farmhouse; a separate interview with a jeweller; the mating of the cows and the birth of calves; and additional inserts.

Post-production

Post-production included two months of professional editing, one week of sound correction, colour grading, subtitling, the production of DCP copies, poster and flyer artwork, two trailers, and a press kit and website. The estimated post-production budget was CHF 75,000.

Technical details

Cast

With the participation of: Claudia Wanger, Nils Müller, Anna Lena Müller Wanger, Rosemarie Amacher, Dani Bachmann, Markus Besmer, Moritz Hirzel, Christoph Krähenmann, Marius Maurer, Finnja Prigge, Tanja Prigge, Joël Rohfritsch, Fredy Suter, Maya Steiger, Abi Wäspe.

With the special participation of Amin Jafari.

Crew

• Written, directed, and produced by: Yadolah Dodge
• Production assistance: Petra Amann
• Cinematography: Yadolah Dodge, Pascale Egli, Carlotta Holy-Stienemann, Nathalie Kambler
• Montage: Catharina Kleber
• Digital laboratory: Roashana Studio
• Colour grading: Kamran Saharkhiz
• Assistant (colour grading): Arsha Naba
• Mastering and DCP: Mohammad Hossein Azizollahi
• Sound designer and mixer: Abdolreza Heydari
• Sound editor: Parvaneh Jahangiri
• Composer: Babak Mirzakhani
• Audio production: Recorded at Toranj Studios, engineered by Kian Hejazi
• Mixing and sound scoring: Farshad Pasdar, Bahman Chakad
• Audio engineering: Farshad Pasdar

ISAN registration

The film is registered with the ISAN Agency under the identifier ISAN 0000-0007-B436-0000-2-0000-0000-V, listed under the title The Eternal Cycle Of Life. The registration record classifies the work as a single documentary from 2026, with a duration of 80 minutes, an original language of English, and Switzerland as the country of production. The record lists Yadolah Dodge as director and producer and Catharina Kleber as editor, and gives the work's kind as "Live," in colour. According to the ISAN record, the entry was created and activated on January 27, 2026, and registered by Yadolah Dodge under ISAN Agency ID 130002.

See also

• Documentary film
• Organic farming
• Sufism in literature

References

1. ISAN Agency. "The Eternal Cycle Of Life — ISAN 0000-0007-B436-0000-2-0000-0000-V." ISAN International Agency, registered January 27, 2026.
2. Hohrüti Post