Byambasuren Davaa

Byambasuren Davaa, also known as Davaagiin Byambasüren (; born 1971 in Ulaanbaatar), is a Mongolian filmmaker currently residing in Germany.

Between 1995 and 1998, she studied at the Movie Academy in Ulaanbaatar. In 1998, she began to work as a moderator and director's assistant with Mongolian National Television. In 2000, she moved to Munich, Germany, to study documentary film and communication sciences at the University of Television and Film Munich.

In 2003, Davaa wrote and directed The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003), which gained several awards and nominations, including Best Documentary Film at the Bavarian Film Awards, Best Documentary at the 57th Directors Guild of America Awards, and a nomination for Best Documentary at the 77th Academy Awards. Her other films include The Cave of the Yellow Dog (2006), for which she won the 2006 German Film Award for Best Children's Film, and Veins of the World (2020).

Her films through 2006 tell stories embedded in the traditional life of the nomads in Mongolia. The subjects of her movies also serve as amateur actors, playing mostly themselves, which positions her work somewhere between documentary and fiction.

Early life Davaa was born in Mongolia in 1971. She studied international law in Mongolia's capital Ulaanbaatar and then moved to Germany, to study documentary film direction.

Career In 2003, she wrote and directed The Story of the Weeping Camel, which won several awards, including the Bavarian Film Awards for Best Documentary, received and sold in more than 60 territories, grossing over 9 million dollars. The Story of the Weeping Camel was cited by Rotten Tomatoes as one of the 165 best films directed by women in the 21st century.

In 2005, she wrote and directed The Cave of the Yellow Dog, for which she was also acclaimed. The film focuses on a family of nomads living in the Altai, 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." The movie tells about a 11-year-old Mongolian boy living the traditional life as nomad with his family in the Mongolian 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. After directing documentaries The Story of the Weeping Camel, The Cave of the Yellow Dog and Two Horses of Genghis Khan, Veins of the World was Dava's feature film debut.

Filmography

Feature films Year FilmDirectorWriterProducer 1999 The Orange Horse 2003 The Story of the Weeping Camel 2005 The Cave of the Yellow Dog 2009 Two Horses of Genghis Khan 2020 Veins of the World

Awards