Mongolia's Submission for Best Foreign Language Film (Academy Award)
Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni's "The Story of the Weeping Camel". Courtesy of Bachmann + Stoppe.

Mongolia's Submission for Best Foreign Language Film (Academy Award)

Two film students endure nature’s miracles and the windstorms of the Gobi desert to film a drama-documentary that studies the interaction between Mongolian nomad shepherds and their “weeping” camel.

By Minnie Chi

The Story of the Weeping Camel
Running Time: 90 minutes

Director/Writer: Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni
Producer (Student HFF): Tobias N. Siebert
Based on an idea by: Byambasuren Davaa and Batbayar Davgadorj
1st Assistant Director: Jiska Rickels
Cinematographer: Luigi Falorni
Editor: Anja Pohl, Byambasuren Davaa, Luigi Falorni
Camera Assistant: Sebastian Grundt
Sound Recordist: Marc Meusinger
Sound Designer: Ansgar Frerich and Tatjana Jakob
Sound Mixer: Hans-Dieter Desinger
Music Composer: Munkh-Erdene Chuluunbat and Batzorig Vaanchig
Cast: Ugna: Uuganbaatar Ikhbayar, Odgoo: Odgerel Ayusch, Janchiv: Janchiv Ayurzana, Dude: Enkhbulgan Ikhbayar, Guntee: Guntbaatar Ikhbayar, Amgaa: Amgaabazar Gonson, Zevel: Zeveljamz Nyam, Ikchee: Ikhbayar Amgaabazar, Chimed: Chimed Ohin
Production Company: Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München (HFF)
Co-Production: Bayerischer Rundfunk
Premiere Date: September 23, 2003
Country: Mongolia


Mongolia is one of the three newcomers to submit a film for Oscar consideration this year with Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni’s Gobi desert narrative-documentary, The Story of the Weeping Camel. Set in the springtime in southern Mongolia, the film follows the family of camel herders who must tend to a mother camel that rejects her newborn after an arduous two-day delivery. The shepherd family keeps the colt alive drawing milk from the mother but when all else fails, they follow an ancient tradition by hiring a specialist musician believed to entice the camel to abide by her maternal instincts. Finally, a violinist is summoned and a wonderous ritual takes place. The music along with a woman’s melodic chanting finds its way into the heart of the mother camel who breaks into tears when reunited with her newborn.

The Story of the Weeping Camel is a profound mixture of documentary and feature film. The pressnote reads: “While being written, planned and shot like a feature film, it is based on a true story and its protagonists are real Mongolian nomads that actually live in the way the film portraits them. The birth, the rejection and the ritual were shot as they actually took place.” The crew was given one chance at shooting the Bactrian camels delivering their babies in a single spring month, which gave them approximately twenty three days for shooting the entire film. Derek Elley of Variety notes that the minute they arrived on location, the crew hurried to shoot the herd’s penultimate birth (a normal delivery), leaving one remaining pregnant camel that gave birth to a white calf, which then it immediately (and luckily) rejected.

The film is Davaa and Falorni’s collaborative graduate student thesis project at Munich Film Academy, inspired by the early work of Robert J. Flaherty in films like Nanook of the North (1922) and Man of Aran (1934). Originally planned as a 60-minute TV film, the project received great interest by distributors even as a half-documentary, and has already been released in Germany. Menemsha Films took notice of the feature at a local student festival and steered it towards its debut at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival. Neil Friedman and Beatrix Weasle of Menemsha Films negotiated the North American acquiring rights contract with New York and Toronto based THINKFilm, which is planning its release in New York on June 4th. For more details, visit: Thinkfilmcompany.com.

The Story of the Weeping Camel has scoured film festivals around the world in the past year including Germany, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Greece, Argentina and U.S. It has also entered the Golden Globe Awards for consideration and has been nominated for the European Film Prize for the European Film Academy Documentary (Prix Arte).



The Directors/Writers

Byambasuren Davaa is a native of Mongolia and the first generation of her traditionally nomad family who grew up in the city. She attended the Mongolian Film Academy from 1995-98 and has been studying documentary film at the Munich Film School since 1999. The Story of the Weeping Camel marks her second film at Munich, an outstanding accomplishment for a filmmaker who was primarily exposed to propaganda-ridden documentaries in the political context of socialism and communism.

Luigi Falorni attended the Film Directing Class of the Cooperativa Schermobianco in Florence, Italy from 1990-92. Two years later, he began his studies at the Munich Film School in the documentary department; from 1998 with a supplementary specialization in cinematography. He graduated in April 2003 with The Story of the Weeping Camel as his final project and is now a freelance director and cinematographer. He has been selected for the German TV-Award (“Grimme-Preis”) in 1998 for his documentary Fools and Heroes. He has also been recognized for his cinematography work for Nulla si sa, tutto si immagina (2001) at the 18th Munich International Documentary Film Festival and Klein, schnell und auber Kontrolle (2000) at the 2001 German Television Award for Best Documentary.

 

The Process of Oscar Nominee Selection in Mongolia

In its first submission for the Foreign Language Film category, the Mongolian Academy of Motion Picture Arts selected one film representing the country with seven committee members consisting of industry professionals.



Mongolia’s Film Industry

Before the country embraced democracy, Mongolia, still bound to socialism in the ‘80s, produced 7-8 art films and about a hundred documentaries a year with financial support by the government. One of the most notable works during the country’s political shift is Nansalyn Uranchimeg’s Shackles (1991), for whom the industry has great expectations. Four years later when Uranchimeg went on to make Heaven’s Animal (co-produced by NHK, Japan Broadcasting Corporation), the film market was already in shambles due to the country’s poor economic conditions.

Mongolian director T. Sarantuya explains the situation of the industry in 2001’s Focus on Asia Forum Report: “Allowing for about 20 documentary films which are now made each year, there isn’t any budget for art film. Also, we have no choice but to use video in our case because film can be developed only in Russia and China. All this means [is] that we don’t have any investor who can put money into filmmaking. Besides, since we cannot afford to make copies from a film as we used to, there is no way to show it to people in Mongolian nomadic society.”

Sarantuya also mentions that after the ‘90s, film students lacked the opportunity to study abroad as was the case. Many film schools developed in Mongolia but only a few have survived, “which makes it more difficult to nurture new talents. What those schools do is only to film documentaries on order.”

Beatrix Weasle of Menemsha Films comments about the affects of being nominated for an Oscar for Mongolian films and filmmakers: “To receive an entry in the section of Best Foreign Language Film is a strong advantage for foreign language films for all international markets. It shows that the film has high quality standards and will receive further interest if the film is nominated. As The Story of the Weeping Camel is the first film entry from Mongolia ever, this of course will have an effect Mongolia.”

Weasle notes that Davaa and Falorni were able to receive financial support by the German government, a German TV station and the Munich Film School and that “It is too early to say what spill over effects it will have for the Mongolian film industry at this stage.”

The official site: www.weepingcamel.com

Date Posted: 1/23/2004