This hope-filled coming-of-age-drama demonstrating resilience and determination against the odds is writer/director Zoljargal Purevdash’s debut feature film.  It effectively combines an engaging story about an ambitious gifted teen with an exploration of underlying socio-economic conditions in Mongolia, against beautifully-shot landscape.  The film made history as the first from Mongolia to play in official selection at the Cannes Film Festival.

Purevdash’s screenplay draws on her own childhood experiences of moving aged thirteen to Ulaanbataar’s poverty-stricken Yurt district, and using education as a means of escape – after high school she gained a scholarship to study film-making in Tokyo. “I arrived back as an educated person who could take care of my family. Unfortunately, I realised this was magic that happened only to me, not to all kids who grow up in my Yurt district street.”

“A terrific script … a formidable debut that captures the indomitability of the human spirit amid even the most challenging circumstances.” Hamza Shehryar, Little White Lies

“Brings an earthy, lived -in authenticity to a premise that, in other hands, could feel like a piece of ethnographic voyeurism.” Wendy Ide, Observer

“An interestingly downbeat, shrewd drama” Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

Starring: Battsooj Uurtsaikh, Nominjiguur Tsend, Tuguldur Batsaikhan.

Awards: Tokyo FILMeX Special Jury Prize; Cannes Un Certain Regard prize nominee.