Byambasuren Davaa | |
|---|---|
 Byambasuren Davaa in 2017. | |
| Born | Davaagiin Byambasüren (Mongolian:Даваагийн Бямбасүрэн) 1971 Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1999–present |
Byambasuren Davaa, also known asDavaagiin Byambasüren (Mongolian:Даваагийн Бямбасүрэн; born 1971 inUlaanbaatar), is aMongolianfilmmaker currently residing inGermany.
Between 1995 and 1998, she studied at the Movie Academy inUlaanbaatar. In 1998, she began to work as a moderator and director's assistant withMongolian National Television. In 2000, she moved toMunich, Germany, to study documentary film and communication sciences at theUniversity of Television and Film Munich.[1]
In 2003, Davaa wrote and directedThe Story of the Weeping Camel (2003), which gained several awards and nominations, includingBest Documentary Film at theBavarian Film Awards,Best Documentary at the57th Directors Guild of America Awards, and a nomination forBest Documentary at the77th Academy Awards. Her other films includeThe Cave of the Yellow Dog (2006), for which she won the 2006German Film Award for Best Children's Film, andVeins of the World (2020).
Her films through 2006 tell stories embedded in the traditional life of thenomads 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.[2] She studiedinternational law in Mongolia's capitalUlaanbaatar and then moved to Germany, to study documentary film direction.[2] 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 mynomadic-family based culture, was also the yearning to learn to understand and relate to the larger context in the world."[2]
She studied documentary filming at theUniversity of Television and Film inMunich,Germany.[2] Before moving to Munich, she worked as a television presenter and assistant director for a Mongolian television channel.[3]
In 2003, she wrote and directedThe Story of the Weeping Camel, which won several awards, including theBavarian Film Awards forBest Documentary,[4] theDirectors Guild of America Award forBest Documentary[5] and theSan Francisco International Film Festival International Film Critics Award.[6] The film was also nominated forBest Documentary at the77th Academy Awards.[7] The movie was extremely well[8][9] received and sold in more than 60 territories,[10] grossing over 9 million dollars.[11] The Story of the Weeping Camel was cited byRotten Tomatoes as one of the 165 best films directed by women in the 21st century.[12]
In 2005, she wrote and directedThe Cave of the Yellow Dog,[13] for which she was also acclaimed.[14] It was Davaa's second feature.[15] The film focuses on a family of nomads living in theAltai, 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."[15] 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."[15]The Cave of the Yellow Dog won the Best Children's Film Award at the 2006German Film Award.[16]
In 2020, she wrote and directed thedramathriller filmVeins of the World,[10] which had itsworld premiere at the70th Berlin International Film Festival on February 23, 2020.[17] The movie tells about a 11-year-old Mongolian boy living the traditional life as nomad with his family in theMongolian 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.[10] The movie was picked by Mongolia as its official entry for the93rd Academy Awards in the categoryBest International Feature Film.[14] After directing documentariesThe Story of the Weeping Camel,The Cave of the Yellow Dog andTwo Horses of Genghis Khan,Veins of the World was Dava's feature film debut.[14][18]
| Year | Film | Director | Writer | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | The Orange Horse | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2003 | The Story of the Weeping Camel | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2005 | The Cave of the Yellow Dog | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2009 | Two Horses of Genghis Khan | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2020 | Veins of the World | Yes | Yes | No |
| Year | Award | Category | Project | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Bavarian Film Awards | Best Documentary Film | The Story of the Weeping Camel | Won | [4] |
| 2004 | Directors Guild of America Award | Best Documentary | The Story of the Weeping Camel | Won | [5] |
| 2004 | Academy Awards | Best Documentary | The Story of the Weeping Camel | Nominated | [7] |
| 2006 | German Film Award | Best Children's Film | The Cave of the Yellow Dog | Won | [16] |
| 2004 | San Francisco International Film Festival | International Film Critics Award | The Story of the Weeping Camel | Won | [6] |
| 2006 | Sahara International Film Festival | White Camel Award | The Story of the Weeping Camel | Won | |
| 2021 | International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights | Grand Prize Fiction and Human Rights | The Story of the Weeping Camel | Won | [19] |
