Mongolian Director Zoljargal Purevdash Talks Cannes Title ‘If Only I Could Hibernate’; Surviving Extreme Winter & Inspiring Mongolia’s Youth

deadline.com:

Zoljargal Purevdash’s debut feature If Only I Could Hibernate tells the story of a teenager living in the yurt district of Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, who is determined to win a physics competition and earn a scholarship to a good school.

But his plans change when his mother takes a job in the countryside and leaves him and his siblings to fend for themselves. Rather than study, he’s forced to take a risky job so he can buy food and fuel.  “My mum opened a shop in the yurt district when I was teenager and we saw many different kinds of people – some were nomads, some living in difficult situations, some parents buying alcohol for themselves, but no food for their kids, just a few cheap candies,” Purevdash tells Deadline. “Somehow, I always wanted to create something for those innocent little children, to tell them a story that would make them happy, or to give them hope.” That story ended up being If Only I Could Hibernate, which premieres in Un Certain Regard on Sunday (May 21) as the first Mongolian film ever in Cannes Official Selection.

The film not only explores the role of education as a route out of poverty, but raises questions about how to tackle Mongolia’s toxic pollution.

The film is set over winter, and as Purevdash explains, winters don’t come much harsher than in Ulaanbaatar, where temperatures plummet to below minus 30 degrees and the city is choked in thick smog for months at a time, as more than half of the inhabitants live in yurts with no access to heating and burn coal to keep themselves warm. “As you can see in the movie, the air pollution is crazy in Mongolia,” Purevdash says. “Every winter you have to breath it in, and the kids are also breathing it in, and have heavy metals running