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2. Selected pre-1990 Films from Mongolia

GOWIIN SEREGLEE (Mirage Above the Gobi Desert)

Ravshaagin DORSHPALAM, Mongolia, 1980, 100 min.

TUNGALAG TAMIR

Ravjaaguyn DORJPALAM, Mongolia, 1970, 35 mm, col., 100 mn

A very evocative picture of 1920s Mongolian society. A man made homeless by his honesty starts working for a very rich lord.

SOYO (The Fang)

Bayarzagaany BAATAR, Mongolia, 1991, 90 min.

ZUWUUN ZAGYN BOGD (Saint in a Turbulent Age)

Luvsansharavyn SHARAVDORSH, Zedendambaagin ZERENDORSH, Mongolia, 1992, 134 min., 35 mm

Five Fingers of a Hand

B. BALJINNYAM, 1983, Mongolia, col., 105 min. In this humanistic yet also moralizing family drama, a wife has supported her husband through his studies in engineering by working in a brick factory while raising five children. When the husband finally graduates, he leaves her for another woman. The wife, desperate, dies, leaving her children under the care of the older daughter. The children remain together despite the father's intent to send some of them to a foster home. Yet the daughter's encounter with a journalism student who starts writing about her life and her courage, changes the family's bad fate.

BI CHAMD KHAYRTAY (I adore you)

B. BALJINNYAM, 1986, Mongolia, col., 91 min., 35mm

SUUDER (The Shadow)

Begziin BALJINNYAM, Mongolia, 1986, col., 80 min., 35mm

A young married woman wants to leave her husband for another man. However, when he leavse home to go to war, she feels pain and sorrow. The resulting psychodrama is a very touching account of how war can turn people's lives into tragedies.

GARID MAGNAI (The Wrestler)

Jamyanguyn BUNTAR, Mongolia, 1983, col., 90 min., 35 mm

Set in nineteenth century Mongolia, the film traces the course of the young Dalaï Tseren, an extraordinarily strong man who wishes to learn wrestling. The film follows his quest for a spiritual master and also his romantic life as he is falling in love with a young woman already promissed to the son of a rich man.

KHUIN KHOLBOO (The Maternal Link)

Jigjidiin BINDER, Mongolia, 1992, col., 85 min., 35 mm

GOLOGDSON KHUUKHEN (The Cast Out Girl)

Dendevin CHIMID-OSOR, Mongolia, 1961, BW, 90 min. , 35 mm

Set just before the 1921 Revolution, The Cast Out Girl tells of the tragic destiny of a young couple and spans over a decade.

SOLONGIIN TAVAN OUNG (The Five Rainbow Colours)

B. NAGNAIDORJ, Mongolia, 1979, col., 80 mn, 35 mm

The Five Rainbow Colours recalls the life of a very famous nineteenth century Mongolian painter named Sharav.

NIISLEL KHUU (The Boy from the Capital)

Bayandelgerin JAMSRAN, Mongolia, 1968, BW, 90 min., 35 mm

Danshit lives in the countryside with his family. His daughter, Dulam Suren, has had a child whose father, a veterinarian passing through the region, seduced her and later abandons her. She raises her son alone until Batkhishig, a young man from the capital, becomes her neighbor.

SHINE JIL (New Year)

Tseveeni ZANDRAA, Mongolia, 1954, BW, 35 mm

Story of Puntsag, a young employee in an Ulaanbaatar factory.

SERELT (The Awakening)

S. GUENDEN, Mongolia, 1957, BW, 126 min. , 35 mm

One of the most famous if not the most famous Mongolian film, this beautiful black-and-white work traces «the awakening» of a remote part of Mongolia, finally cleansed of its quacks, phony religious practitioners and downright crooks thanks to the arrival of Western science and medicine, as embodied in a very blond Russian doctor who `civilizes' the ignorant masses.


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