Nomingerel, Egshiglen, Bayarjavkhlan and Enkhmaa, aged from 13 to 18, live in Khatgal, a village in northern Mongolia. Over several months, they filmed with their smartphones and, through their teenage eyes, show us the portrait of a rapidly changing country.
In Mongolia, a third of the population lives in poverty. Is that why the suicide rate is so high? Suicide survivors and family members of those who have taken their lives relate their circumstances, far removed from the freedoms of traditional nomadic life. Not all of them wish to be identifiable in the film; suicide is a taboo. In the darkness, a teenager whispers emotionally about her brother’s suicide and a couple who lives off selling scrap metal tells a story of their son’s survival. The stories come from different parts of the country, but everywhere the reasons given for suicide are similar: hopelessness, unemployment, loneliness and harshness of life.
A young girl who lives in Ulaanbaatar is in crisis. She is totally disappointed by the idea of dependent upon the social contract. After several failures, she successfully created a relationship with someone. A someone who can share her ideologies with her. But she finds herself again in trouble communicating in terms of language. After several years, she eventually finds peace by rejecting idealism and grasps the power of rational thinking.
Breathtaking cinematography provides an intimate glimpse into the life of Nomadic sheep herders on the Mongolian steppe. For Purevjav and his family, the predatory wolves who steal sheep at night are as troubling as the grazing land that is disappearing as with the mining boom. With quiet dignity, Purevjav speaks of the sacred relationship between human and wolf and how exploitation and misuse of the land has transgressed humanity's sacred connection to the landscape.
