Short film
Norjmaa's Destiny
Норжмаагийн зам
Lev Sheffer · 1938
Synopsis
In a courtyard in Ulaanbaatar, in the nineteen-thirties, two neighbours, Norjmaa and Tserendulam, are each expecting a child. Norjmaa, who has already lost two pregnancies, entrusts the third to a lama, who recites his prayers beside her; Tserendulam follows the doctors' advice at the hospital. The film alternates between the two births, one at home, the other at the hospital, where an ambulance takes the second woman.
Context
Commissioned by the Ministry of Health and produced in 1938 by Mongol Kino, the silent film runs to two reels, six hundred and thirty-two metres of black and white film, or twenty-four minutes. The screenplay and direction are shared with Tömöriin Natsagdorj, the studio's first Mongolian director, who appears in it himself as Tserendulam's husband; the cinematography is by A. A. Lebedev, with two Mongolian pupils, B. Demberel and S. Demberel. The film was restored in high definition in 2012.
Who it is for
A silent short film of twenty-four minutes, conceived as a health-education film for mothers.
Prizes and reception
Regarded in Mongolia as the first fiction film shot by Mongols, a title that other historians give to a film of 1936.
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