Free-Range Herds, in the Broadest Sense Cattle drives in westerns have taught moviegoers the beauty of the herd, a rippling organic mass spreading across the landscape like a bestial cloud. The documentary "Hiver Nomade" ("Winter Nomads") shares that sense of peace as it shadows two French shepherds wrangling and coaxing their 800 sheep in search of green pasture across the snow-covered Swiss countryside. A few years back, "Sweetgrass" made much hay out of its expressive ovine subjects, but here the focus is slightly more on the human guides: the trim, middle-aged Pascal and his striking younger apprentice, Carole. The Swiss-born director Manuel von Stürler applies a vérité approach to their undertaking, gently drawing upon the rough, bucolic romance of the "transhumance" (the practice of fattening sheep by allowing them to graze freely for a season). With their dogs, Pascal and Carole trace a rural world where farmers host them according to custom, but where roads and overpasses are part of the obstacle course, and a special meal might come from a supermarket. Some stretches of the film are nearly black-and-white, with the exception of her red beret and his floppy hat, as they cajole the animals with banter that vaguely recalls the encouraging cries from the bleachers at a baseball game. Mr. von Stürler has a light touch, not pushing hard on the nostalgic, comic or meditative. What little we learn of Pascal, who has worked in Switzerland as a shepherd for more than 30 years, and Carole, who is a former dietitian, fits in a scene or two, but their practical journey yields a certain contemplative equanimity.