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The chaos theory of Mongolia

I returned to Mongolia 15 years ago after an absence of 13 years, save for the occasional 2-week leave from work, and that time I spent a semester and a half at a local university drinking endless cups of brown, watery 150 Tugrik instant MaCcoffee at the cafĂ© strangely, or perhaps egotistically, named "In my memory", writing the first and so far the only book that got us into trouble with the local intelligence who apparently had little else to do than to pore through the ramblings of teenagers to catch the tell-tale signs of drug dealery. But I digress. When you visit a country for a short period, be it home or not, you hardly have time to immerse yourself in the spirit of the country and the city and feel the nitty gritty and dirty shiny of it all. So after 13 years, it took me a while to readjust and finally understand what the hometown of my childhood had become.  The most striking, ubiquitous, and inescapable feature was and still, unfortunately, is the traffic. In 2008,...

An Article on Mongolian Cinema

Good friend of mine Alicia Kish has recently written a pretty insightful article on Mongolian cinema for film.culture360.org. Read it here.

It is mainly about Byamba Sakhya, an inspirational contemporary cinematographer who's been successful at various film festivals, notably for State of Dog (which is embedded below in its entirety with English subtitles, from google videos). I remember it came out when I was just graduating from secondary school. It was waaaay ahead of its time. It instantly became a cult classic. It featured beat poet Galsansukh who's an another Mongolian I aspire to. The film's Belgian co-production definitely shows through with very avant-garde approach to its content.
A definite must-see.

/Heesco.


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