Byambasuren Davaa,
also known as Davaagiin Byambasüren (born 1971 in Ulaanbaatar), is 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.
In 2003 Davaa wrote and directed The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003),
which gained several awards and nominations, including Best Documentary
Film at the Bavarian Film Awards, Best Documentary at the 57th
Directors Guild of America Awards, and a nomination for Best
Documentary at the 77th Academy Awards. Her other films include The
Cave of the Yellow Dog (2006), for which she won the 2006 German Film
Award for Best Children's Film, and Veins of the World (2020).
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.
Davaa was born in Mongolia in 1971. She studied international law in
Mongolia's capital Ulaanbaatar and then moved to Germany to study
documentary film direction. Regarding the reason of her move to
Germany, Davaa has stated: "I wanted to learn how to tell stories.
Stories that move people of different cultures that are meaningful and
universal. For me, the step out of Mongolia, out of my nomadic-family
based culture, was also the yearning to learn to understand and relate
to the larger context in the world."
She studied documentary filming at the University of Television and
Film in Munich, Germany. Before moving to Munich, she worked as a
television presenter and assistant director for a Mongolian television
channel.
In 2003 she wrote and directed The Story of the Weeping Camel, which
won several awards, including the Bavarian Film Awards for Best
Documentary, the Directors Guild of America Award for Best Documentary
and the San Francisco International Film Festival International Film
Critics Award. The film was also nominated for Best Documentary at the
77th Academy Awards. The movie was extremely well received and sold in
more than 60 territories, grossing over 9 million dollars. The Story of
the Weeping Camel was cited by Rotten Tomatoes as one of the 165 best
films directed by women in the 21st century.
In 2005 she wrote and directed The Cave of the Yellow Dog, for which
she was also acclaimed. It was Davaa's second feature. The film focuses
on a family of nomads living in the Altai, northwestern Mongolia, and
the impact a stray dog has on them. The "actors" in the film are a real
family of nomads, and the movie has been described as a
"quasi-documentary." As other movies by Davaa, it depicts everyday
moments for the nomadic Mongolians, using real nomadic Mongolians as
actors, and thus in the movie there is "a crunch of authenticity when
Mother cuts a block of cheese, milks the goat or sits at her sewing
machine to make a school outfit for Nansal; when the father skins a
pair of sheep, hoists the skins onto his motorcycle and drives off to
sell them in the nearest town." The Cave of the Yellow Dog won the Best
Children's Film Award at the 2006 German Film Award.
In 2020 she wrote and directed the drama thriller film Veins of the
World, which had its world premiere at the 70th Berlin International
Film Festival on February 23, 2020. The movie tells about a 11-year-old
Mongolian boy living the traditional life as nomad with his family in
the Mongolian steppe, whose peaceful life is "threatened by the
encroachment of international mining companies, digging for gold and
devastating the natural habitat." The boy's father opposes the
encroachers, and after his death the boy carries on the fight. The
movie was picked by Mongolia as its official entry for the 93rd Academy
Awards in the category Best International Feature Film. After directing
documentaries The Story of the Weeping Camel, The Cave of the Yellow
Dog and Two Horses of Genghis Khan, Veins of the World was Dava's
feature film debut.
Бүтээлүүд
1999: Хул морь (видео) 2003: Ингэн нулимс 2005: Шар нохойн там
2009: Эзэн Богдын хоёр загал Шагналууд 2003: Баварийн Кино Шагнал. Шилдэг баримтат кино Ингэн нулимс 2005: Германы Киноны Зар Сурталчилгааны Шагнал. Шар нохойн там 2006: Германы Кино Шагнал. Шилдэг хүүхдийн кино Шар нохойн там
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Byambasuren Davaa, eigentlich
Dawaagiin Bjambasüren (*1971 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolei) ist eine
mongolische Dokumentarfilmerin und Filmregisseurin.
Ihre Karriere begann Byambasuren 1989 – parallel zu einem Jurastudium –
als Moderatorin und Regieassistentin beim staatlichen Fernsehen der
Mongolei. 1995 bis 1998 absolvierte sie ein Studium an der Hochschule
für Filmkunst in Ulaanbaatar. 2000 ging sie für das Studium des
Dokumentarfilms und der Fernsehpublizistik an die Hochschule für
Fernsehen und Film München. Dort drehte sie zum Vordiplom gemeinsam mit
Luigi Falorni ihren zweiten Film: Die Geschichte vom weinenden Kamel.
Diese Dokumentation wurde weltweit ein großer Erfolg und für den Oscar
2005 in der Kategorie Bester Dokumentarfilm nominiert. Ihren
Abschlussfilm an der HFF drehte Davaa 2005: Die Höhle des gelben
Hundes. Im Juni 2008 begannen die Dreharbeiten für Davaas neuen
Kinodokumentarfilm Das Lied von den zwei Pferden mit der mongolischen
Sängerin Urna, der im August 2009 auf der Piazza Grande in Locarno
seine Weltpremiere feierte. Das Lied von den zwei Pferden startete am
3. Juni 2010 in den bundesdeutschen Kinos und wurde auf mehr als 30
internationalen Filmfestivals aufgeführt. Neben Kinostarts in Holland,
Frankreich, Spanien, Schweiz, startet der Film 2012 erstmals auch in
den Kinos der Mongolei.
Byambasuren Davaa ist Mitglied der Deutschen Filmakademie.
