This film is about the amazing story of a teenager living in the ger district of Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, who is determined to win a physics competition and earn a scholarship to a good school. But his plans change when his mother takes a job in the countryside, leaving him and his siblings to fend for themselves. Rather than study, he’s forced to take a risky job so he can buy food and fuel. If you have the chance to watch this film, please do. I was very touched by this film. Let us say more about this film, its filmmaker, and its history.
“My mum opened a shop in the ger district when I was a teenager, and we saw many different kinds of people – some were nomads, some living in difficult situations, some were parents buying alcohol for themselves, but no food for their kids, just a few cheap candies," Zoljargal says. "Somehow, I always wanted to create something for those innocent little children, to tell them a story that would make them happy, or to give them hope."
That story ended up being If Only I Could Hibernate, which premiered in Un Certain Regard as the first Mongolian film ever to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival. The film not only explores the role of education as a route out of poverty but raises questions about how to tackle Mongolia’s toxic pollution.
The film is set over winter, and as Zoljargal explains, winters don’t come much harsher than in Ulaanbaatar, where temperatures plummet to below minus 30 degrees, and the city is choked in thick smog for months at a time. More than half of the city’s inhabitants live in gers with no access to heating and burn coal to keep themselves warm.
“As you can see in the movie, the air pollution is crazy in Mongolia," Zoljargal says. "Every winter, you have to breathe it in, and the kids are also breathing it in and have heavy metals running through their blood. But the solutions people are coming up with are total nonsense. They’re talking about using refined coal when they should be installing solar panels.”
After developing the script for If Only I Could Hibernate for several years, Zoljargal says she was waiting through what felt like endless cycles of funding applications for international grants but also raised some financing from local sources, including the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and a Mongolian fintech group.
This determination seems typical of Zoljargal, who has written, directed and produced the film but whose journey into filmmaking was not a straightforward one. She decided at a young age that she wanted to write and direct but was afraid to tell her family, who wanted her to enter a more conventional profession.
Like the protagonist in If Only I Could Hibernate, Zoljargal also excelled in math and physics and won a scholarship to enter a prestigious high school. But instead of pouring over physics books, she joined the school’s drama group, then won another scholarship to study filmmaking at J. F. Oberlin University in Tokyo, Japan. After graduating, she returned to Ulaanbaatar, worked as an assistant director on several local films, and then became a mother, which put her filmmaking career on hold.
This film went into production with a wholly Mongolian cast and crew. Several crew members were heading departments for the first time. The DP was a stills photographer, and the co-producer had a background in documentaries, while the cast was mostly non-professionals, including children who had grown up in the ger district.
Mongolia does have a local film industry, producing around 40-60 films a year, but Zoljargal wanted kids from the ger district rather than professional child actors for authenticity: "We did a casting call, and I chose kids with characters that were similar to those in the script. I told them why I wanted to make this film, and these kids were so honest and pure; they could see what was happening around them and wanted to help me tell this story."
She adds that with the mercury plunging to minus 42 degrees at one point, more pampered child actors might not have been able to deal with the shoot: "We had to put the cameras into a warm car every five minutes to stop them from freezing. I covered my kids with thick blankets, gave them hot drinks and vitamins and put hot sand in their shoes. I don’t think we could have done it without the kids’ strength and spirit."
Those kids flew to Cannes to walk the red carpet at the film’s premiere in the Un Certain Regard section. Battsooj Uurtsaikh, Nominjiguur Tsend, and Tuguldur Batsaikhan head the cast of the film, which was produced by Zoljargal’s Amygdala Films and Urban Factory Production, with Urban Sales handling international distribution.
"I wanted people who breathe this air to tell the story with me," Zoljargal says. "Everyone worked really hard on this film, and we hope it will make people think about how we can give every kid an equal chance of a good education."
