{"id":49798,"date":"2026-10-08T02:19:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T00:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/?p=49798"},"modified":"2026-10-08T02:19:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T00:19:40","slug":"lkhagvadulam-purev-ochir-mongolian-cinema-ulaanbaatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/culture-sports\/lkhagvadulam-purev-ochir-mongolian-cinema-ulaanbaatar\/","title":{"rendered":"Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir: \u201cHousing is the Mongolian dream – and nightmare\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Mongolian filmmaker Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir speaks to Novastan about filming Ulaanbaatar, the country’s apartment obsession, masculinity and spirituality, and why contemporary Mongolia needs to be seen as more than folklore.<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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International images of Mongolia are still dominated by the steppe: horses, yurts, nomadic herders and vast landscapes. The films of Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir look somewhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her characters inhabit apartment blocks, bedrooms, cars, schools and the sprawling neighbourhoods of Ulaanbaatar. They worry about housing and money, negotiate sex and relationships, struggle with expectations placed on young men and women, and move between a rapidly changing urban Mongolia and older cultural and spiritual reference points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read more on Novastan<\/strong>: \u201cMongolia cannot be understood through one lens\u201d: Dr. Mendee Jargalsaikhan on democracy, China and Central Asia<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purev-Ochir has emerged as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Mongolian cinema. After studying film direction and screenwriting, she attracted international attention with the shorts Mountain Cat<\/em>, Snow in September<\/em> and A South-Facing Window<\/em>. Her first feature, City of Wind<\/em>, continued her exploration of young Mongolians navigating the tensions between modern urban life, family, desire and spirituality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A still from Mountain Cat, Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir’s first short film. Courtesy of Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Yet her films are not simply portraits of Ulaanbaatar. Purev-Ochir describes the city itself as something difficult to capture: a place that, on screen, repeatedly becomes an \u201cinner landscape\u201d. Her interest lies in transitions – between adolescence and adulthood, intimacy and isolation, the physical and spiritual worlds, and different ways of imagining what it means to be Mongolian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These tensions are also playing out on a much larger scale. Mongolia has experienced extraordinarily rapid transformations across successive generations: communism, democratisation, globalisation and now the internet and artificial intelligence. Ulaanbaatar’s relentless expansion has made housing both an aspiration and a source of frustration, while the country’s international image remains closely associated with a nomadic culture from which many urban Mongolians have become physically removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more on Novastan<\/strong>: \u201cThe idea of having choices was so new\u201d: Oyungerel Tsedevdamba on Mongolia\u2019s democracy 36 years later<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Purev-Ochir, cinema offers a way to explore these contradictions without resolving them. Speaking to Novastan, she discusses why apartment ownership has become the Mongolian \u201cdream and nightmare\u201d, why she worries that Mongolians themselves are orientalising their culture, what shamanism means in contemporary urban life, and why she hopes a new generation might eventually imagine a different relationship between Mongolia’s cities and countryside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Novastan: Before we talk about the films themselves, could you tell us a little about your own path into filmmaking? What was your background, when did cinema become something you wanted to pursue seriously, and were there particular filmmakers, writers, artists or experiences that shaped you early on?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir:<\/strong> Apart from the initial decision to study filmmaking, which was full of psychological drama because I was cutting ties with what my parents had envisioned for my future, I had a pretty straightforward and traditional path in filmmaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I studied for my bachelor’s in film direction and master’s in screenwriting, and subsequently, upon graduating from my master’s, I made two short films which did very well at festivals. My first feature film, City of Wind<\/em>, came out exactly five years after my graduation. I had written the script during my master’s in screenwriting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made the decision to go into filmmaking and not pursue medicine like my mother because watching films and thinking about them was one of the only true pleasures in my life. I couldn’t imagine my early adulthood doing anything else and made the \u201cbold\u201d – or lazy – decision to go into filmmaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I made this decision, I was purely a film watcher. I had no knowledge about how films were made, no idea about montage, and no previous idea of what a film set was like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How would you describe yourself as a filmmaker today? What kinds of stories, characters or tensions do you find yourself returning to, and what do you think you are still trying to understand through cinema?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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I’ve noticed so far through my films that I wish to capture transitions and states of movement with cinema – specifically in the inner worlds and impressions of people. People who are more at war with themselves and their feelings than with external characters. Or people whose inner states are conflicting with exterior states, and the transition between these states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like these transitory situations and feelings and contradictions. I prefer autumn and spring to summer and winter, for example. Autumn and spring are seasons that fight with themselves; there is tension and vast change from day to day and even between day and night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Mongolia in autumn, it can feel like summer in the day and winter at night. There is conflict in temperatures, in expression and in affect. These seasons feel more reflective and reflexive. I think with cinema, I wish to capture something seasonal like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Across the three shorts, Ulaanbaatar seems to change with the age and situation of your characters. In Mountain Cat<\/em> it is a place of adolescence and possibility, in Snow in September<\/em> it feels more enclosed and unsettling, and in A South-Facing Window<\/em> adulthood seems almost physically trapped by apartments, traffic and financial pressure. Do you see these films as capturing different stages of growing up in the same city?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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I think it could be said like that. It’s true that the characters in my films are growing up – my next film is about a man in his mid-30s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a different note, I find Ulaanbaatar strangely difficult to \u201ccapture\u201d on camera. It’s a wide, steppe city spread out across a large valley. Even neighbourhoods which are more enclosed feel open and exposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel that on the screen Ulaanbaatar is not very geometric and more landscape-like. And it gives a feeling of something more timeless and affective rather than something specific and geographic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried to depict Ulaanbaatar this way – to make it very characteristic and to connect its different spaces to different plot points and characters. But try as I might, the city always feels more like an inner landscape than an active location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In A South-Facing Window<\/em>, the couple seem to be searching for a better life through real estate – visiting empty apartments and imagining another home. You have also described an apartment in central Ulaanbaatar as part of a kind of \u201cMongolian dream\u201d. What interested you about housing as a symbol of aspiration, and do you think that dream still captures what younger Mongolians want today?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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Housing is the Mongolian Dream\/Nightmare par excellence<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of our nomadic background, the idea of real estate as individual wealth is relatively new. I think my grandparents’ generation was the first generation that slowly started to pursue living in apartments because it was more \u201ccivilised\u201d and meant that you were part of the state – only state workers got apartments then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the moment, all Mongolians are attempting to buy apartments because it’s an absolute \u201cmust\u201d of modern life. And somehow it is thought of as the solution to all modern problems, as a status symbol, and a sign that everything is \u201calright\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A still from Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir’s movie A South-Facing Window<\/em>, which explores Mongolia’s housing boom and the social pressures surrounding apartment ownership. Courtesy of Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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When, on the contrary, the cause of all of Ulaanbaatar’s problems is this inflated housing sector and rampant construction fever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read more on Novastan<\/strong>: Keeping the heat in: Mongolia\u2019s overlooked answer to Ulaanbaatar\u2019s air pollution<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think only when this \u201cgreed\u201d for apartments finishes will a new \u201cdream\u201d for Mongolians appear. And hopefully our New Mongolian Dream will be a dream that focuses on the countryside and our nomadic core.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t think we will ever be alright as a country and as a people unless we are nomadic in some form or another. This new form has to be dreamt of and created. The traditional nomadic way of living is too far outside the new generations’ reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I know of many under-30 Mongolians who want to live in the countryside, outside of the fever that is Ulaanbaatar, myself included. So this \u201cdream\u201d is slowly changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Your films pay enormous attention to physical space: Soviet apartment blocks, ger districts, cars, bedrooms, unfinished or empty apartments. How consciously do you use architecture and urban space to reveal class, intimacy or power between people?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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I think space is connected to the inner lives of my characters. How my characters relate to the spaces they find themselves in is part of how they feel about themselves and how they position themselves in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spaces are not just a place where the stories are set. They’re part of the characters and their truths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Snow in September<\/em>, the intimate encounter between Davka and the older woman is deeply uncomfortable because the imbalance of power is obvious, yet the film never over-explains it. You have spoken about realising that \u201cthe camera was a weapon\u201d when deciding how to film that scene. Has making that film changed how you think about the ethics of showing intimacy, particularly when working with young actors?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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This film helped me understand the relationship between the camera and me as the filmmaker – to understand some things about my presence and my voice. About film as a responsibility, but also as a language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images are part of the grammar of what I am \u201csaying\u201d with the film, so I must be precise with them. And be aware of what I am saying, when I am saying it, how I am saying it, and why I am saying it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopefully as I age and mature, this relationship between me and the camera becomes clearer to me and my films become more \u201cprecise\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Male vulnerability appears in striking ways in your films. Davka in Snow in September<\/em> is inexperienced and manipulated, while Shagai in A South-Facing Window<\/em> seems frustrated, insecure and unable to articulate what is happening to his marriage. Are you particularly interested in forms of masculinity that do not fit more conventional images of Mongolian men?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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I think because I am a female filmmaker, I will always depict masculinity from a non-orthodox angle. I don’t think I am overtly interested in unconventional depictions of masculinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that my personal relationship to masculinity is quite flawed and filled with insecurity. And naturally it is felt in my films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A still from Snow in September<\/em>. Courtesy of Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Interestingly, my next film includes the theme of masculinity. I’ve been thinking quite a lot about the men in my life and my relationship to my son. And so let’s see how my next film turns out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Mountain Cat<\/em>, shamanism is brought into a very ordinary contemporary setting rather than being presented as something exotic or separate from modern life. How does spirituality actually coexist with urban, educated and globally connected Mongolia in your own experience?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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I heard some time ago that we are not physical beings that sometimes become interested in shamanism or spirituality or religion. On the contrary, we are spiritual beings dealing with a physical world. I quite agree with this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think before anything we are spiritual beings. Humans are innately spiritual. And to be connected to spirituality is a matter of \u201cperspective\u201d or \u201cangle\u201d or \u201cchoosing a timeline\u201d, as the kids say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not just in Mongolia but throughout the world, living a spiritual life is a matter of closing your eyes and opening your eyes and choosing what you will experience and how you see things. It sounds overly simplistic, but profound things are actually quite simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think Mongolians are very lucky in that we still have access to ancient practices that allow us to experience our spirituality. Modern Mongolians have this access and can turn to shamanism – comprised of spirit worship and nature worship – when the physical world is overwhelming or empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not a choose-one-way-or-the-other kind of situation. We have access to the physical and the spiritual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You have mentioned that your parents speak Russian while you and your sisters speak English, and that Korean has become increasingly attractive to younger Mongolians. What do these changing linguistic and cultural reference points tell us about generational change in Mongolia? Do they affect how generations understand one another?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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Since my grandparents’ generation, major socio-political and cultural changes have happened – communism in my grandparents’ time, democracy during my parents’ time, globalism during my time, and now, in the newer generations, the internet and AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are major shifts in the human experience and social order. Since the 1980s, each decade has been so different from the previous one that there is certainly a gap between the generations that ultimately translates into the question of identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My films are, in a way, an attempt at understanding and expressing our identity through our lived experiences and relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mongolia is still often represented internationally through the steppe, nomadism, horses and spectacular landscapes. Your films are much more interested in apartments, traffic, schools, bedrooms and the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar. Do you ever feel that simply showing ordinary urban Mongolia is itself a way of pushing back against how the country is imagined abroad?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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I actually have a problem with how Mongolia is portrayed, not necessarily by foreigners, but by how we Mongolians portray ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have started to glamorise and orientalise our own culture because that is what foreigners value. Our relationship to our culture is becoming a \u201csimulation\u201d because we are relating more with signs and symbols of what being a Mongolian means rather than actually having a lived relationship to our own culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do push back against this idea and against the simplistic image that Mongolia has in the collective consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wish Mongolia had a more humane and more literal presence in the collective consciousness – not like folklore. With my films, I aim to put Mongolia in the modern collective consciousness – as a real people, with a real country, and a real presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You have said that being away from Mongolia sometimes allows you to see the country more clearly. What changes in your relationship with Mongolia when you leave it – and what do you notice first when you come back?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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I feel that my relationship to Mongolia is actually strengthened when I am away because I miss it and yearn for my family in Mongolia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I am away, I am able to think more deeply and in a more concentrated manner about the core ideas I have in my films. When I am in Mongolia, I am more distracted and de-centred. I am more inspired by the characters, the specific scenes, conversations, colours and smells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A still from Mountain Cat<\/em> by Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir. Courtesy of Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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So I feel that my relationship to my script and my film is enriched by the nomadic relationship I have with my country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I first go back, I am always transported back to when I was 10 years old – the first time I left the country. I feel that whenever I return, I return to the feelings of that girl – a girl who had never left Mongolia yet and who felt like no other place in the world existed or mattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Which Mongolian cultural work – a film, book, album, artist or even a place – do you wish more people outside Mongolia knew about, and why?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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I wish that more people knew of the particular existence of the Gobi Desert. It’s a very fragile and harsh geography that produces the best singers of Mongolia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through song, the people survive and they soften the landscape and their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think many people have heard of the film The Story of the Weeping Camel<\/em>. I think that this land has to be protected more, especially now with mining and uranium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read more on Novastan<\/strong>: Bolor Lkhaajav: \u201cMongolia does not need to choose between Russia and China\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a vulnerable land, sparsely populated, so more care and attention must be given due to its fragility and exploitability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan English.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mongolian filmmaker Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir discusses Ulaanbaatar, the country\u2019s apartment obsession, masculinity, spirituality and her determination to show a modern Mongolia beyond stereotypes of nomads, horses and the steppe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":358,"featured_media":49825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4670,4939,4],"tags":[5127,4954,5072],"coauthors":[358],"class_list":["post-49798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-sports","category-interview","category-kazakhstan","tag-lkhagvadulam-purev-ochir","tag-mongolia","tag-ulaanbaatar"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/358"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49798"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49836,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49798\/revisions\/49836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49798"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=49798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}