The transition

Mongolkino remained a powerful organization until Mongolia’s first post-socialist Constitution was adopted in 1992, a process that signaled the end of the Mongolian People’s Republic and its replacement with a state founded on democracy and free-market principles. During its distinguished 50-year history Mongolkino produced more than 160 feature films, 1,000 documentaries, and supported the development of more than 600 cinema and screening venues in urban and rural areas.

Since the end of the 1980s, when state funding for the film sector came to a complete halt, Mongolkino was run on a self-employed basis. As in other privatization campaigns across the country this left artists unemployed under the guise of modern freelance artists. This crisis in the industry deepened during following years. The price liberalization of the 1990s, effects of the macroeconomic ‘shock doctrine’ policy implemented in Mongolia, and liberal democratic reforms did not bypass the Mongolian film industry and had two important consequences.

One one hand, the complete elimination of ideological influence and strict control and filtering processes gave artists an opportunity to express their views freely. This made space for a wide range of innovative films with new expressions that addressed social issues. Significant films of this time included works by directors J.Binder (including Community Union, and Towards the Stars of the Day), G.Jigjidsuren (Dream White Colt, and Tears of Love Never Dry), and B.Baljinnyam (Under the Power of Eternal Sky, and Idol). Other important figures of this period included cameramen L.Sharavdorj (Tsuvuun Tsagiin Bogd) and B.Badar-Uugan (The Last Stone of the World), and writers Ch.Gombo (Difficult van Togtokhtur), N.Uranchimeg (Heavenly Animal), I.Nyamgavaa (Earth, Amulet of the Wild Noble), Kh.Damdin (Man), Ch.Jumdaan (Aldas, Tengeriin Sahil), B.Sumkhuu (Father’s Hearth) and J.Solongo (The last Queen of the King).

On the other hand, the collapse of the socialist production system, cinema industry ecosystem, and cessation of state support led to the establishment of about 30 private film companies under free market conditions. With the lack of government support the old film-making elite, composed primarily of professional artists and technicians trained in the former USSR, was forced out of the market and replaced by domestic private school graduates and new era entrepreneurs. This marked the beginning of Mongolia’s commercial cinema era. The data for this period are as follows: four feature films were made in 1991, 24 in 1992, 42 in 1993, 29 in 1994, 10 in 1995, 3 in 1996, 4 in 1997, 3 in 1998, 2 in 1999 and 2 in 2000.

For the first time, artists who set out to make micro-films and make money were playing a part in the void of transitional politics. But a peculiarity of this period was that filmmakers, who did not know the nature of market society and did not find a way to adapt to it, could not easily raise funds, create significant works and stand on their own. By the late 1990s and early 2000s there were many low-cost, poorly-crafted video films such as The Rat and Faith in Life, which portrayed the decay of humanity

“Passion”

S.Byamba, a living example of director J.Binder and his own reflections, showed this strange picture of the transition period of Mongolian cinema in his film Passion (2010).

The process of transition in the Mongolian film industry in the 1990s, which involved a sociologically important shift from professional elite artists of the past to the amateur entrepreneurs of the new era, was accompanied by a technical shift from expensive 35mm film to videos. In terms of content, post-1990 films were mostly historical in nature. Many were packaged as adventure, crime, or melodramatic commercial products. At the same time the doors of the international community were opened and Mongolian cinema became known to an audience that had never been reached before. Since 1990 numerous fims have been shown at international film festivals. Notable examples include Tengeriin Sakhil (Nantes, France), Mongolian Song and Gobi Mirage (Fukuoka International Film Festival, Japan), and New Alphabet Teacher, Palm Prints, Whispered Words in the Heart, Mountain Iron, In Your Absence, and Warm Ash (1992 Asia-Pacific Film Festival in Seoul, Korea).