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Cinematographer Josua Fischer has fond childhood recollections of rising up in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Now, he’s returning to his roots with Harvest Moon, a movie directed by Amarsaikhan Baljinnyam and shot amongst the nation’s beautiful grasslands.
“The primary time I used to be in Mongolia was ’92, and I used to be 9 months outdated with my dad and mom who went over there as assist and growth staff… We’ve bought this large catalog of outdated slide movie images of my childhood in Mongolia,” he tells MovieMaker. “I like the individuals there.”
A Mongolian-language movie with English subtitles, Harvest Moon follows the story of Tulgaa (Baljinnyam), a city-dweller who returns to his native village in Mongolia to go to his dying stepfather. He decides to stay round to help with the summer time harvest, however quickly, Tuntuulei (Tenuun-Erdene Garamkhand), a sassy 10-year-old boy, takes it upon himself to show Tulgaa what he is aware of about tending to the grasslands. Regardless of getting off on the flawed foot, the 2 quickly notice that collectively, they may also help one another heal from their respective emotional wounds.
It’s a narrative that basically resonates with Fischer, whose personal childhood recollections are fused with that place.
Amarsaikhan Baljinnyam and Tenuun-Erdene Garamkhand in Harvest Moon
Initially from Germany, Fischer grew up in Mongolia and moved to the U.S. after highschool. He’s spent the final 8 years in Los Angeles, and ended up engaged on Harvest Moon after assembly Baljinnyam on the set of the Drew Thomas motion film The Mongolian Connection.
Additionally Learn: Harvest Moon Tells a Bittersweet Story About Autumn in Mongolia
“I virtually felt like I grew up throughout 4 totally different many years, as a result of once we moved there in ’92, it was proper after the collapse of the Soviet Union and Mongolia’s transition into democracy and market financial system, which was a time of utmost poverty there… the Soviet cash went away, the market financial system hadn’t totally began up but. It was like this bizarre limbo factor. So, my early, early childhood was virtually like rising up within the ’50s within the West. There was simply not a lot there. It was like outdoors enjoying with sticks and stones sort of a factor,” he mentioned.
“Now, the capital metropolis is so congested and it’s like all large, fashionable metropolis… however after I was a child, you would cross the primary highway in downtown with out trying the opposite means, and there can be, like, a cow grazing on the median.”
His childhood in post-communist Mongolia can also be accountable for how he developed his artistic eye.
Amarsaikhan Baljinnyam in Harvest Moon
“We’d stay in these outdated Russian blocks of residences — concrete, grey all the things. However my dad and mom at all times managed to create a really ‚ they only made it actually fairly,” he mentioned. “My different mates’ homes, they only sort of moved in because it was. It felt like a colorless, communist residence, however they’d Fortunate Charms on their shelf, ? However that was the distinction… my dad and mom had been capable of actually at all times create a really nice aesthetic setting. And I believe that’s one thing that simply impressed me, in a means, to create stuff.”
Whereas taking pictures Harvest Moon, Fischer and the remainder of the crew stayed in yurts within the grasslands the place they had been filming, about 45 minutes from the closest village, Norovlin, in Khenti province. It’s simply south of the Russian border. For the actors’ costumes, they borrowed conventional clothes from native nomad households. They even requested a neighborhood herder if they may movie his herd of 400 horses as they got here to the highest of a hill with a view to seize one of many scenes within the film.
“It’s certainly one of my most particular instances of my life. It was actually magical,” Fischer says. “We left there being like, we simply actually captured one thing particular.”
Essential Picture: A younger Josua Fischer with a Mongolian nomad. Photograph courtesy of Fischer.
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