As seen from the sky, the coal lorries driving across the Gobi Desert create an impressive sight. There are hundreds of them, bumper to bumper. If you didn’t know better, you might think you are looking at an image of a giant iron snake, criss-crossing the sand. In fact, these trucks are all headed toward the Chinese border to deliver coal. One of the few women drivers on the “coal highway’ is Maikhuu Sengee. She dreams of the better life her work might bring her. But this is a profession rife with danger, brutality and exploitation.
Mongolian director Khoroldorj Choijoovanchig first told Maikhuu’s story in his Grierson prize-winning short Lady of The Gobi, backed by Guardian Documentaries. He had always intended to make a feature film. Now, seven years after first beginning to explore the bleak reality of life on coal highway, he has done so.
Colors of White Rock, sold by Met Film Sales, has its world premiere in Tribeca before going on to play in International Competition at Sheffield Doc Fest.
This is a gritty but poetic film. “I didn’t want it to be really, really political, but in a way the topic, the theme of the story, engages with the current situation in Mongolia,” the director notes of a story that can’t help but have a strong political undertow.
The director’s co-writer Chantal Perrin marvels at Choijoovanchig’s “eye,” his ability to spot a striking shot wherever he points his camera. “It’s always interesting. He shoots beautifully…which brings a lot of poetry.”
In this case, Perrin adds, the filmmaker met an “exceptional woman,” in main protagonist Maikhuu. Streetwise but idealistic and striving, she gives the documentary its emotional core. She’s a single mother with daunting responsibilities, but she is also cheerful and resilient in the face of what sometimes seems like overwhelming misfortune.
Director Choijoovanchig shot a mountain of material – several hundred hours. As co-writer, Perrin was looking for the “major topics.” He told her and another co-writer, Kate Kennelly, what he experienced and what he hoped for from the film. “They really helped me, writing this piece together,” Choijoovanchig says of the support he received.
The situation on the Chinese border was “crazy.” There were huge traffic jams in the middle of a vast desert. These were images that imprinted themselves on the director’s mind.
“I was filming and I was also following my character…I hadn’t put the pieces together and I needed to prove the story was worth making – and people could understand my vision,” the director explains why he spun off the original short movie. Even before that, he had a nine-minute trailer that enraptured everybody who saw it.
Early on its journey, the project won a ‘Colors Of Asia’ award at Tokyo Docs in 2021. This meant it received funding from Japanese broadcaster NHK. The hitch here was that NHK wanted a 30-minute film. By then, there was already enough material to edit a short, so he went ahead. The Guardian also offered support.
“It was a bit annoying because we really wanted to do a long version but still [we thought] it is going to help us,” Perrin remembers the origins of The Lady of The Gobi. At the very least, they knew they would get some extra money which would allow Choijoovanchi to carry on filming for the feature.
And, yes, this was a very tough movie to make. Early on, he was filming on his own, inside the trucks with the drivers. Later on, he had a production assistant who would drive alongside the trucks. That meant he could leave the truck cabin from time to time.
There were no proper hotels where he could sleep. He was staying in yurts, in roadside camps and settlements. “I was just living how the drivers were living.”
In fictional movies, trucking is often portrayed in idealised fashion. Think of The Wages of Fear or Hell Drivers or Convoy where drivers are shown taking risks or pitting themselves against the elements and relish life on the open road. But, no, Choijoovanchi doesn’t see the romance.
“I didn’t know that people were really suffering on this road. As a fellow Mongolian, a fellow citizen who is benefiting from their job, which is delivering coal to China, I didn’t know how they were suffering,” the director expresses his surprise about what he discovered. Observing the drivers, he couldn’t help but notice that “their eyes were really gloomy and sad.” At the same time, he saw their passion and determination.
Perrin suggests that The Lady of The Gobi is “maybe softer and more romantic” than the feature that has now followed it. In the short, Maikhuu was shrugging off the hardships and portraying her life as an adventure.
But the tone is altogether different in Colors of White Rock. “As he went deeper into the life of this woman, then it became more tragic and difficult,” the co-writer suggests. “You realise how mad and crazy this life is.”
Between the mines and the border, the road stretches for over 200km but there is nothing at all there: “not one tap of water, no commodities, nothing at all. So when they stop there for days, no-one is there to help them in any way.”
The director hopes that his documentary may open the eyes of trucking companies and public officials to just how stark and desolate life becomes for these truckers. This is a world in which Mongolian drivers are sometimes assaulted and abused by Chinese border guards who seemingly act with impunity. The film features Gray, a union leader battling for workers’ rights, but he is a solitary voice who often struggles to be heard.
Since the pandemic, the drivers’ lives have improved a little. The government has taken a closer interest in their situation. Nonetheless, it remains a gruelling and precarious existence.
Colors of White Rock is a quintessentially Mongolian story, but it has been made with strong western support. Backers include France Télévisions, Alter-Ciné Foundation, Asian Cinema Fund, Catapult Film Fund, CNC, Doc Society Climate Story Fund, Inmaat Foundation, Sundance Institute Documentary and others.
Choijoovanchig accepts that it would have been difficult to pull off the project without this backing.
“This is my first [feature] documentary…all the supporters and allies really helped me to make this film and I am grateful for that. In one way, it was a necessity,” he notes. Mongolian movies aren’t well distributed on the international circuit. To get exposure, he needed experienced producers. He says that he also appreciated their point of view.
“I also think it was interesting for them. I know foreign filmmakers come to Mongolia and make a documentary about Mongolia…[but] they have romantic ideas. Sometimes [what they depict] is really not true,” Choijoovanchig suggests. His film, by contrast, gives an insider’s view – an authentic one.
The director was based in Ulaanbaatar but his subject, Maikhuu, was often working more than 1000km away. Whenever he wanted to film, he therefore needed to plan meticulously in advance. There were frustrations along the way when he missed important moments simply because he wasn’t able to be with her, and Maikhuu concealed certain private events from him.
“That was why it took a long time to shape the story,” he says. “It was sad that I couldn’t be with her in her difficult moments.”
However, the duo became very close. Perrin suggests that the director was like a “big brother” to Maikhuu. Inevitably, after seven years of working on the project, some very strong moments hit the cutting room floor. At one stage, the idea was to feature another driver too – but in the end this character is only seen in passing.
“Editing, making a story out of this forest of images, was quite difficult,” Perrin acknowledges. Nonetheless, they have ended up with a documentary that is both spectacular and hard-hitting.
Choijoovanchig hopes the film will draw attention to the hardships the drivers face and the environmental consequences of the mining. “Maybe in the future, the situation will get better. I hope so. But those people [the drivers working now] will be forgotten – so I wanted to make this film to honour those who are suffering,” he concludes.
