Documentary Educational Resources - Geography / Asia / Mongolia / All Films

Fate of the Lhapa

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Fate of the Lhapa is a feature-length documentary about the last three Tibetan shamans (lhapas) living in a Tibetan refugee camp in Nepal. With no other descendants to carry on their healing practices and a younger generation attending schools, acculturating, and modernizing, these "sucking doctors" are practicing an endangered tradition. Each lhapa requested that their story be filmed so that an historical record would be created. Their fear was that the next heir might not appear until after the old men's deaths. Subsequently, with no lhapa alive to mentor the children, the documentary would be used to transmit the knowledge to the next generation.

These tales of nomadic childhoods, shamanic callings and apprenticeships, cosmologies of disease and treatments, and of their flight from Tibet during the Chinese occupation in the late 1950s will be juxtaposed with images of present-day life in the camp, current healing practices and shared concerns of the future and the fate of their tradition. This is a touching portrayal of life in exile in a refugee camp in Nepal.

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Live From UB

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 06:41:00 GMT

Live From UB
Buy Now: $320.00

Mongolia is a vast land — 3 million people live in a country more than twice the size of Texas. Wild horses, gers (Mongolian yurts), and goat and sheep herds dot the expansive landscape just as they did when Ghenghis Khan founded the country in 1206. But there is another, seldom-seen side of Mongolia outside of its bustling capital, Ulaanbaatar (or UB for short). It is home to half of the country's population. It is the financial epicenter of Mongolia's quickly growing economy. And it is the backdrop of an ever-growing vibrant rock music scene.

Live From UB follows one young rock band, Mohanik, as they develop their unique Mongolian rock sound and record their second album. They struggle with what it means to be Mongolian and how to reconcile their Mongolian identity with western Rock. Interspersed throughout are exclusive interviews with a range of Mongolian music industry experts, rock and pop stars, anthropologists, and heads of state, highlighted by rare archival footage or rock concerts.

The tale of Mongolian rock is the tale of modern Mongolia itself. In 1990, the Soviet-style government welcomed multiparty elections after a year of peaceful protests in UB's central square. Rock music played a central role. For the youth of the 70s and 80s, rock music symbolized freedom. They yearned to have the same freedom of expression and free market economy they knew existed beyond their borders. They used music to reach their peers and spark a revolution. Although the transition was peaceful, it was not easy. The new Mongolia spiraled into deep unemployment and become almost completely dependent on foreign aid for its survival; the music revolution would have to wait.

By the mid-1990s, the economy began to stabilize and Mongolia was poised to join the outside world. Just as people were turning to foreign models of industry, finance and government, they were intrigued by new culture. MTV flooded the Mongolian airwaves and suddenly teenagers were exposed to Punk, Grunge, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Pop, Indie, Dance, Techno. They consumed, imitated and practiced these new styles. Mongolian versions of Nirvana, Boyz II Men, TLC, and Madonna all emerged. The next decade was a period of growth and stabilization for Mongolia. They slowly weaned themselves off of foreign aid. They poured resources into their now booming mining sector. New buildings began to crowd UB. With this new stability came a renewed desire to once again assert to the world what it means to be Mongolian.

Now, the generation of Mongolians born into a new democracy are taking the stage and using it to explore their unique place in Mongolia and beyond. Suddenly, musicians are incorporating different aspects of Mongolian tradition back into their music. Rappers have a backing band of traditional instrumentalists. Groups are coupling ancient tunes with hard rock treatment, and pop stars are wearing traditional garb when they perform at home and abroad.

LIVE FROM UB shows the viewer a side of Mongolia that is often overlooked in international media - a Mongolia that is both eager to be recognized internationally and happy to embrace its own unique heritage, that juggles the pressures of globalization and being part of a small landlocked country between two political giants of Russia and China - yet refuses to give up on the idea that Mongolia will once again be a great force in the world.

The history of Mongolian pop music comes to light in Lauren Knapp's informative documentary... Recommended.
–Video Librarian

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Winner, Best Mongolian Film, Mongolia International Film Festival, 2015

Winner, Best Emerging Documentary Filmmaker, Asian American International Film Festival, New York, 2015

Winner, Audience Choice for Documentary Feature, Asian American International Film Festival, New York, 2015

Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival Bucheon, S. Korea, 2016

DisOrient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon, 2016

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The Song of Harmonics

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:47:00 GMT

The Song of Harmonics
Buy Now: $295.00

In the practice of overtone singing (called also bi-phonic singing), whose best-known examples can be found in Mongolia and with the Tuva people of Southern Siberia, a single person sings what the audience perceives as two voices at the same time: a low pitch with his vocal cords, and in addition, a high-pitched melody using harmonics (overtones) selected by modifying the volume of the mouth cavity.

This documentary is not an ethnography filmed in location. It is partly an illustration of the results of former research, partly the very actual investigation on overtone singing carried out in Paris, in the Ethnomusicology Department of the Musée de l'Homme, during a workshop, during a concert of the Mongolian National Ensemble, and in the medical visualization department of a hospital. The central figure is Tran Quang Hai, a well-known musician specialized in Vietnamese music, a performer and researcher in overtone singing, who is there working with the filmmaker in the same research group.

The initial idea was to explore new technologies allowing the visualization of music structure and performance. The film shows for the first time in real time and with synchronous sound how bi-phonic singing operates from the physiological as well as the acoustical point of view. While shooting the x-ray pictures of tongue movements and the spectral views of overtones, the filmmaker and his collaborators discovered for the first time — like the viewer of the film — how this unique vocal technique operates.

“The Song of Harmonics is a true masterpiece...Rather than being a know-all priggish schoolmaster, Hugo is your favorite uncle who gently guides you through the secrets he has in store, always giving the impression that you are his favorite nephew/niece as well...Hugo Zemp is a very good researcher of music, and for the scientific community it is fascinating to see him handle problems that tempt most of us one way or another.”

— Robert Boonzajer Flaes, Visual Anthropology, 4(1), 1991

“This work demonstrates that Zemp has made full use of the emerging potential for film in musicological research.”

— Tokumaru Yosihiko, Ethnomusicology, 38(2), 1994

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Grand Prix, International Festival of Scientific Films of Québec, 1991

Special Prize, Best Ethnomusicological Film, Academy of Sciences, Estonia, 1990

Grand Prix, Pärnu Int'l Visual Anthropology Film Festival, Estonia, 1990

Special Prize for Research, Int'l Festival of Scientific Films, France, 1990

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Adventure High

Wed, 18 Jul 2018 13:30:00 GMT

Adventure High
Buy Now: $320.00

Five young men - including the filmmaker - take a four-month break from their responsible adult lives to travel by bicycle from Mongolia to Nepal hoping to experience old-fashioned travel adventures. Their journey leads them through diverse landscapes and harsh conditions (the Gobi Desert where water and roads are equally difficult to find; the flooded dirt roads and landslides caused by heavy rain in the Himalayan mountains). They are exposed to diverse cultures and meet fascinating people (Mongolian nomads, Buddhist pilgrims, yak herders in the Himalayas). As relationship dynamics develop and change within the group, the five travelers very different natures only add to their journey's drama. Nevertheless, it is the messages from home that have a much larger impact on their states of mind than the daily physical and psychological difficulties that they encounter.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Andrea Morelli Special Prize, 54th Trento Film Festival, Italy, 2006

Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival, Nepal, 2004

Festival du cinéma nordique, Rouen, France, 2005

"Vertical" Moscow International Adventure Film Festival, Russia, 2005

Catalonia International Environmental Film Festival, Barcelona, Spain, 2005

Fewa Film Festival, Pokhara, Nepal, 2005

Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropology Film Festival, Estonia, 2005

Green Film Festival, Seoul, Korea, 2005

Bicycle Film Festival, various US locations, 2005

Ecocinema, Athens, Greece, 2005

Flagstaff Mountain Film Festival, Arizona, 2006

Celluloid Cycles, Canberra, Australia, 2006

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