UB Lama

,,UB LAMA”

“UB LAMA"

(50 min., Documentary, colour, 2011, Nominum)

Directed by: Eglė Vertelytė
Director of photography: Otgon Gesu
Music: Titas Petrikis
Produced by: Arūnas Matelis, Lukas Trimonis

Synopsis: Gaala is only twelve, but he must look after his mother and younger brother. His farther died 2 years ago. To make ends meet, he is a vendor in the market in Ulaanbaatar and brings money to his mother who waits for him in the ger, the traditional Mongolian yurt, in the poor and dirty periphery of the city. The boy misses many days of school and has little time for play. His mother dreams of a different future for her son; to lift him from poverty, she attempts to have him accepted into a Buddhist monastery in order to become a monk. With Gaalas story, we are brought closer to the reality of life in the capital of Mongolia, where families live in dire conditions in the characteristic yurt, in a society that day by day abandons tradition in favour of modernity and its contradictions.