Byambasuren Davaa

A Mongolian film maker currently residing in Germany. Between 1995 and 1998 she studied at the Movie Academy in Ulaanbaatar. In 1998 she began to work as a moderator and director’s assistant with Mongolian National Television. In 2000 she moved to Munich, Germany, to study documentary film and communication sciences at the University of Television and Film Munich.

Her films through 2006 tell stories embedded in the traditional life of the nomads in Mongolia. The subjects of her movies also serve as amateur actors, playing mostly themselves, which positions her work somewhere between documentary and fiction.

♦→  Story of the Weeping Camel ⇐[2003]

A nomadic family in Mongolia’s Gobi desert faces a problem when a white camel colt is born in a difficult delivery and the mother rejects it. Repeated efforts by the extended family to get the mother to nurse the colt fail. The colt stands alone and cries for its mother. The family worries that the colt will not survive. Finally, Dude (Enkhbulgan Ikhbayar), the older boy, is sent to a nearby town to find a musician who can perform a «Hoos» ceremony. Little Ugna (Uuganbaatar Ikhbayar) begs to go along. The two boys travel for miles across the desert, stopping at a neighbor’s yert, where Ugna is delighted by his first encounter with television. They travel on to the village, and then return home with word that a musician is on the way. A musical ceremony is performed in an effort to get the mother camel to accept her colt. The Story of the Weeping Camel is a blend of documentary footage and narrative. Filmmakers Luigi Falorni and Byambasuren Davaa cast a real nomad family of herders and shot many of the events in the film as they occurred.

•→ «Gobi» soundtrack of «The Story of the Weeping Camel» by boertemus ←

◊  The Cave of the Yellow Dog ⇐  [2005]

A Mongolian nomad family find themselves in disagreement when the oldest daughter, Nansal, finds a dog and brings it home. Believing that it is responsible for attacking his sheep, her father refuses to allow her to keep it. When it’s time for the family to move on, Nansal must decide whether to defy her father and take her new friend with them.

◊  Two Horses of Genghis Khan  ↓ [2009]

A movie about the singer Urna‘s quest to find the origins of a song related to The Two White Horses of Genghis Khan (Mongolian: Činggis-un qoyar ere jaγal-un tuγuji), a Mongolian epic in alliterative verse.

∇   Veins of the World  ⇓  [2020]

After the sudden death of his father, 12-year-old AMRA and his mother ZAYA have to find a new way for the future. Midst the fight against international mining companies to be allowed to stay in the steppe and the hope for a better life in the city, the family threatens to break apart.

•→ https://cineuropa.org/en/video/385334/ ⇐[clip]