To non-horse-riders the subject of this looks like the most extraordinary exercise in masochism and self-harm, and yet there is a kind of fascination in it. The film is about the Mongol Derby, a brutally punishing 1,000-kilometre endurance race across Mongolia, recreating Genghis Khan’s 13th-century horse-messenger trail.

Riders have to use the wild horses they’re given and ride all day for about 10 days, changing mounts every 40 kilometres. They are intensively tracked and monitored with GPS, with hyper-alert support teams of doctors and vets, although psychotherapists would probably also be a good idea. The contestants face tough terrain, the possibility of encountering wolves and probable/inevitable injury – or, as someone cheerfully puts it: “faceplanting”, which could lead to broken necks. It looks as terrifyingly dangerous as the TT races in the Isle of Man.

There have been Mongolian competitors in the Mongol Derby but by and large the riders seem to be from Europe, America, Britain and Ireland, and there is, just possibly, a quasi-colonial experience in the race, although it is more nuanced than this: a black South African rider’s presence complicates this impression. One rider says: “You don’t want to go through this so quickly – you don’t enjoy the culture and the landscape.”

Perhaps there’s simply no other way to get through it – though Ivo Marloh’s camera gives some sense of the pure daunting vastness of the setting.