When Danish filmmakers and photo-journalists Kristoffer Juel Poulsen and Christian Als went to Mongolia almost a decade ago, they weren’t sure what they would find. They were there to research Neo-Nazi gangs.
Soon, they encountered the enigmatic Gerel Byamba (the subject of the new feature doc Daughter Of Genghis sold by Taskovski Films and premiering at CPH:DOX March 15). “There were not many women in these Neo-Nazi groups,” Als recalls.
They talked to Gerel and discovered she had broken away from one nationalist group to form a new one for women. Her agenda was clear. As a proud Mongolian, she bitterly resented the creeping Chinese presence in her homeland. She also wanted to stop local women working as prostitutes and was prepared to use violence to achieve her ends.
The Danish filmmakers quickly realised that Gerel was “more sophisticated and interesting than many of the guys we had talked to before that,” as Als puts it. Poulsen talks of her “fierce personality” but also of the fact the camera seemed drawn to her. She had a natural charisma.
When they decided to make Gerel the central character of their film, she seemed open to the idea. “Later on, she told us that what made her trust us was that we did not judge her in any way,” Als recalls. “Neither Kirstoffer nor I are very judgmental people. She was a very multi-sided person and that was interesting to us.”
It took a lot of negotiation to get the access they needed. “She didn’t just say ‘hey guys you can follow me.’ There was also a lot of talking.”
Early on, the filmmakers accompanied Gerel as she and her gang members raided a brothel. This showed she trusted them but it was a hair-raising episode for the Danes. “Filming was really…weird! But we are both photo journalists and documentarists. Our most important role there was to tag along and document what was happening. Of course, it was quite shocking in a way but this was the reality,” Poulsen says of their foray into the Mongolian underworld. They made sure their cameras were working and “just followed” what was in front of their eyes.
Gerel has a young son, Temuulen. She is struggling to look after him properly. The filmmakers spent a long time “hanging out” with him too. “As he grew older and older, he started to learn a little English. We both have kids,” Poulsen explains how they established such a strong rapport with her boy.
The film (which also had Knud Brix as co-director) originally had the title ‘Motherland.’ The directors explain there were strong reasons for changing it. “Daughter Of Genghis is the perfect title for this movie. Gerel sees Genghis Khan as her biggest hero. This is quite normal for every Mongolian, I think. He is the founding father of Mongolia – and the country used to be the biggest empire in the world.”
The name Temuulen was also the name Genghis Khan had as a kid.
In one scene, mother and son visit a statue of Genghis. The day they went there, it was minus 40 degrees, bitterly cold and very windy. “And they were just there for hours!” Als exclaims in wonder. The boy listened patiently as his mother told him more and more stories about the great Mongolian ruler who once conquered the world.
The two directors faced hurdles other than the cold in making the documentary. It didn’t help them that Mongolia “closed down” during the pandemic. “It was a tough period for the project, not being able to go there, but then again, not a lot of things happened [during that period],” Poulsen recalls. He calculates that he and Als made “at least 10 trips” to Mongolia. They ended up shooting over 200 hours of material.
“Straightforward is not a word I would use,” Als reflects on a very complex editing process. This was their debut as directors of a feature doc. “We come from a background where you often work for very short [periods]. You go to Gaza for two weeks, you send home pictures and then it is in the paper next Sunday.”
Daughter Of Genghis required them to work “in a much longer time frame.” The filmmakers pay tribute to their producer, Andreas Dalsgaard of Elk Film (whose other credits include The Lost Leonardo and The Jaguar) and editors Per K. Kirkegaard and Estephan Wagner for helping them navigate their way through this process.
Over the course of the documentary, Gerel softens. She doesn’t exactly renounce her fervent nationalist beliefs but she takes a more conciliatory approach with the women working as prostitutes. In spite of her loathing for China, she ends up employed by a Chinese company. She puts her son ahead of her politics.
Mongolia is a huge country but one with a small population. It is “sandwiched between” two huge empires, China and Russia. The locals can’t help but feel frustrated at their powerlessness in the face of their neighbours. At the same time, China is their biggest export market. Als talks of their “love-hate’ relationship with the country.
There is one intriguing scene in which Gerel has her fortune read by an old lady using cards. The old lady is remarkably accurate in her prognostications about Gerel’s life. The two directors also consulted the soothsayer.“This card reader, she also did our card readings. It was actually quite amazing how accurate she was,” Poulsen says.
“She is really a medium,” Als adds. “I have a wife who is also a medium and very into spiritualism and so I am used to it, having a woman who tells me how my life is going to be! But I have to say that because everything was in Mongolian, we didn’t realise everything she said.”
Als and Poulsen have known each other for many years. They were both students at the Danish School of Journalism and ended up as interns at the same newspaper. “We were always good friends and liked each other,” Poulsen says of their longstanding collaboration.
Gerel and her son is in Copenhagen this week for the premiere of the documentary. “She has seen the movie and was very touched by it. She really felt that we saw her as she is…that was maybe the biggest accomplishment for us,” Als says of winning their subject’s approval.
After the screenings at Copenhagen, Daughter Of Genghis will screen at various festivals among then Hot Docs and Millennium Docs Against Gravity. Distribution details are expected to be confirmed in the coming weeks.
