North American Premiere
Zoljargal Purevdash’s lively feature made a splash at this year’s Cannes, where it screened in the Un Certain Regard program and announced the arrival of a refreshing new voice in world cinema. Set in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, If Only I Could Hibernate tells a story of perseverance and courage. Batsooj Uurtsaikh plays Ulzii, a teen with a gift for physics who is encouraged to enter a national competition. The payoff for victory is sweet: a full-ride university scholarship and, eventually, the chance for Ulzii to lift his family out of crushing poverty.
Handsomely shot in ’Scope, Purevdash’s film unfolds in the classroom, the ice-cold outdoors, and the lateral confines of the family yurt. As usual for teen-centred films, the home is a place of bitter struggle; once Ulzii’s alcoholic mother (Ganchimeg Sandagdordorj) departs, that struggle is for basic subsistence. Amid the scramble for coal, medicine, and food, the protagonist has to master physics— a tall order indeed, but it makes for richly compelling cinema.
Battsooj Uurtsaikh, Nominjiguur Tsend, Tuguldur Batsaikhan, Batmandakh Batchuluun, Ganchimeg Sandagdorj
Mongolia/France/
Switzerland/Qatar
2023
Panorama
In Mongolian with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
Frédéric Corvez, Maéva Savinien, Zoljargal Purevdash
Screenwriter
Zoljargal Purevdash
Cinematography
Davaanyam Delgerjargal
Editor
Alexandra Strauss
Production Design
Binderiya Munkhbat
Original Music
Johanni Curtet
Director
Zoljargal Purevdash
Zoljargal Purevdash is a Mongolian filmmaker who studied filmmaking at the University of Obirin, in Japan. Her short films were screened at Tampere Film Festival, Short Shorts Film Festival Asia, Open Doors Locarno Film Festival, etc. In 2021, her short film Stairs won the first prize at the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival and entered the 94th Oscars Award. She is an alumnus of Talents Tokyo, Asian Film Academy, Locarno Open Doors, Torino Film Lab, and Berlinale Talents.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Sinners
This year's unexpected box office sleeper is that rare beast, a genre movie full of bold invention and surprise. We are in Mississippi in the early 1930s, and the opening of a new blues joint on the edge of town is the signal for all hell to break out.
The Graduate
In The Graduate Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman, 30 playing 20 with masterly understatement) comes home from college and is surprised to be seduced by the wife of his father's business partner, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft).
blur: To the End
Now in their late 50s, Britpopsters blur (of Song 2 fame) do a celebratory lap of Great Britain culminating in their first ever Wembley Stadium show in this appealing observational doc. A companion piece to the concert film Live at Wembley Stadium.
Midnight Cowboy
Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman are street hustlers on different ends of the innocence / experience spectrum who establish something more than a business partnership in the seedy world of late 60s New York City in John Schlesinger's New Hollywood classic.
The Headless Woman
The pictures tell the story -- and you better not blink -- when Veronica (the superb Maria Onetto) hits something on the road home. But what? She is too traumatized, or panic-stricken, to go back and look, and her fears are too terrible to acknowledge.