( www.davidbaxendale.com, Flickr/ CC BY-ND 2.0 ), O'Connor, Rebecca. And it's true that when he first saw that image of Aisholpan, he knew there was something zeitgeisty in it. In the shadowy world of ancient warfare, one weapon stood out as a true marvel: Greek fire. http://realscreen.com/2016/02/12/celluloid-dreams-picks-up-the-eagle-huntress/, Saito, Stephen. [14], Some reviewers and researchers felt that the documentary overstated the amount of opposition Aisholpan faced as a female eagle hunter and that the early promotion of the film included an ethnocentric and distortive description of the Kazakh eagle hunting culture as being one of "ingrained misogyny" (IMDb description for initial 7 months from film's premiere). I've never really seen Agalai, the father, get that emotional. He was broke, but a friend had years earlier given him an email address for Morgan Spurlock, the gonzo documentary maker who came to fame with Super Size Me. 2.11M subscribers Narrated by: Daisy Ridley The Eagle Huntress Official Trailer 1 (2016) - Documentary The Eagle Huntress follows Aisholpan, a 13-year-old girl, as she trains to become the. ", Aisholpan is a 13-year-old Kazakh girl in western Mongolia who learns the ancient art of eagle hunting from her father Nurgaiv.Credit:Sony Pictures Entertainment, But to those who don't believe it's real, he has a simple rejoinder. The ancient practice of eagle hunting is carried on today by a few hundred nomadic Kazakhs in Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Xinjiang (northwest China). It's not like you can really direct, either; you can't be like, "Go back to one." Eagle hunting is a sacred tradition in Mongolia, handed down from father to son for centuries. I took my young daughter to see The Eagle Huntress and I think every father should do the same (take your daughter, that is, not mine). So he put them in the film. Girls and boys start riding horses at age five and help with herds and putting up gers. She's not; as Stanford academic Adrienne Mayor convincingly argues, there have been many female eagle hunters, dating back to ancient times, and a handful of them in the modern era. FIG 2.2. Except I'd stayed longer than their average tourist. The pair of them have done a fantastic job. Asher Svidensky's photo that inspired 'The Eagle Huntress', How John Paino Built (And Destroyed) a World for 'The Last of Us'. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. For thousands of years this was how the nomadic peoples of the northern steppes from the Caucasus to Manchuria hunted for survival. So, the idea of having Daisy for about five minutes of narration through the film, and having that big, directional score, is to kind of help kids orient themselves. Take your career and your day rate to the next level. Except the conflict never really happens. "We did it in one take, on the first afternoon. 2012. about Bronze Age Sexism In Horses May or May Not Extend to Human Society! Just mountains, tents, gers, and goats. Amanbol at Eagle Festival, Ulgii, Mongolia, 2014. "But we ended up filming that amazing sequence, and that became the heart of the first act.". ", Aisholpan's performance at the competition provides the film with a climax of sorts, but to Bell it felt too much like a sports movie. I filmed it like I would film a live sports event," he says. I really enjoyed this article and I think the photographs are spectacular! Makpal says Kazakh elders (with one exception) gave their blessing because they remembered that women used to hunt with horses, dogs, and eagles.. Bell: Actually, we had so much, we had to leave about 200 kilos in Ulaanbaatar [Mongolia], the capital city, in a locked room in the airport. Bell's breathtaking documentary "The Eagle Huntress" previewed at Sundance in January 2016 to international acclaim. "The first time I saw Aisholpan, having flown across the world to see her, was incredible," Bell has said. Especially in the winter. Looking forward to seeing this. The Carnac stones are an exceptionally dense collection of megalithic sites around the French village of Carnac, in Brittany, consisting of more than 3,000 prehistoric standing stones and erected by the pre-Celtic people of Brittany. ", Additional reporting by Grace Brown in Ulan Bator, and Mike Wendling in London. Competitions; Wanderlust magazine . Apparently unaware of Makpal and other girls learning skills, Svidensky cited extreme cold and difficult terrain as the reason eagle hunting was reserved for males, and portrayed Aisholpan as the only girl. He was weeping. Early publicity for the film did little to inspire confidence, by stating that Aisholpan had fought "an ingrained culture of misogyny to become the first female eagle hunter in 2,000 years of male-dominated history" - a claim that US historian Adrienne Mayor has shown is untrue. [7], The Eagle Huntress premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, where it was purchased by Sony Pictures Classics for the US and Altitude Film Distribution in the UK. She is the author ofThe Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World(Princeton Read More, Thank you Carol Ann1 ! The monument was Tamgaly in Kazakhstan, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, provides evidence of the rich history and diverse cultural heritage of Central Asia. Asian Conference on Asian Studies, International Academic Forum. We probably did seven trips. I know that at heart what she really wanted to do was go out hunting with her dad.". Watching the film, a cynical viewer may fear that Aisholpan has been coached when she says: "Girls can do anything if they try." "Her bravery and her feats in that eagle hunting contest are really amazing and inspiring," she says. What am I doing?. Incredible story, and great interview working on my first documentary now, and filming in a foreign language, so this was inspiring. "I wanted to not have a client or brand objectives, that sort of stuff," he says. 2015. If you are determined enough, there are people out there who will help and want to help. I was blessed by such elders as Tleubek Esimbek, Aben Toktasynov, Seitzhan Kodekov. The men in her family have been eagle hunters for seven generations,[6] and she wants to follow in their footsteps. Bell characterizes Mongolia as backwards and claims that because the Kazakhs live in such isolation they are ignorant about what women can do. Interviewed in Mongolia's leading newspaper in 2016, however, Aisholpan's mother Alma stated that there are no restrictions on girls deciding to be eagle hunters. It has a stirring musical soundtrack, ends with an anthem "You can do anything" sung by pop superstar Sia, and is narrated by another teenage role model, Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley. It isnt hitting theaters until next month, but much has already been written aboutThe Eagle Huntress. Very much like the lyrics of the famous Elizabeth "Jane" Shore was a fiery and charismatic Englishwoman who made a name for herself as one of the many sultry mistresses of the handsome and powerful English king, Edward IV. Tarim,! "The blessing scene - he said he was going to do this, I just asked him to do it outside. Aisholpan loves it, which is good. On day one, Nurgaev announced he and Aisholpan were going to try to steal a young eagle from its nest, so that she might train it up for hunting. Lauren McGough, American eagle huntress in Mongolia, 2009-2013. I think if we didn't have him and that understanding of the landscape, we'd probably still be out there trying to shoot, trying to finish it. (Photo courtesy Dennis Keen), In 2009, Reuters released a video of the young eagle huntress Makpal Abdrazakova competing in an eagle festival in Kazakhstan. He was whispering, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, so of course I started crying as well. 4.3 51 Ratings. In retrospect, it was the biggest gamble I've ever taken. The film starred her older brother Bazarbai when he was 12. "People say 'oh, this is staged, it's too good to be true'," observes director Otto Bell of the backlash against the film in some quarters. In one of the film's most thrilling sequences, we see Aishol-pan and her father tracking an eagle to its nest, high up a rocky cliff. There's a spirit that soars in German filmmaker Otto Bell's first feature documentary, The Eagle Huntress, which tells the story of 13-year-old Aisholpan Nurgaiv and her quest to break through . But they are made possible not only by her own grit and skill but by her nomadic culture, in which women can be men's equals and girls can train eagles. But the fundamentals of the film are confirmed by Aisholpan herself. The film follows the fortunes of a 13-year-old Kazakh girl called Aisholpan, who wants to learn the ancient art of eagle hunting - hunting foxes on horseback, with an eagle - from her father. She belongs to a family of nomads who spend their summers in a ger in the Altai Mountains and their winters in a house in town. In The Eagle Huntress, who is Aisholpan's main advocate? I grew up riding in school. Aisholpan (left) at school, in The Eagle Huntress.Credit:Asher Svidensky. . The Eagle Huntress, a documentary about a Kazakh nomad girl in Mongolia learning to hunt with a golden eagle, divides opinion. 2010. It was fine when I was directing it, because everything was going our way. We set aside about five days to film that final act [in which Aisholpan and her father go alone into the deep wilderness to hunt fox]. "Visit to Mongolia's Altai Mountains Takes Flight with Eagle Hunting" Report on 2104 Ulgii festival. Marianne Williamson Signals 2024 Presidential Run. What I was able to do was cut together 10 minutes. Of course, finding a fox took forever. Bronze Age Sexism In Horses May or May Not Extend to Human Society! Bell spent $US80,000 "my whole life's savings" and took out a high-interest loan to fund the trip. Thank you Liz, thank you Otto Bell, thank you Agalai and Aisholpan! The only artistic licence he took, he insists, is the opening sequence in which a hunter sets his bird free (the Kazakhs release their eagles after seven years, deeming them to have entered the stage of their lives when they are ready to become parents themselves). for only $13.00 $11.05/page. [25] The filmmakers made Aisholpan and her family "profit participants" in the documentary and established a fund to help pay for Aisholpan's higher education. FIG 2.7. And while some people may seem content with the story as it stands, our view is that there existcountless mysteries, scientific anomalies and surprising artifacts thathave yet to be discovered and explained. Tim Robey in the Telegraph describes as "woefully unspontaneous" a scene where a newsreader on the radio in the family's tent is heard talking about the forthcoming eagle festival, and Aisholpan pipes up to plead with her parents for permission to enter. When The Eagle Huntress premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 24, one of Hollywood's biggest breakout stars was quietly plotting to use her newfound fame to help make it soar.Star Wars . Earth-2's version of Bruce Wayne . Thegoal of Ancient Origins is to highlight recent archaeological discoveries, peer-reviewed academic research and evidence, as well as offering alternative viewpoints and explanations of science, archaeology, mythology, religion and history around the globe. We took about 700 kilos [1500 lbs.] With her broad face, perfect teeth and sparkling eyes, Aisholpan could have come straight from central casting. Adrienne Mayor's paper, The Eagle Huntress - Ancient Traditions and New Generations, mentions a number of Kazakh women who have trained or are training to hunt with eagles, Otto Bell (centre) with Aisholpan's parents at the Ajyal film festival in Doha in December, Rescuers search wreckage of deadly Greece train crash. Ren Bo Hansen). Sleepless nights gets kicked around a lot but, for me, it was a real thing. Read about our approach to external linking. NFS: How did you find these dream characters, Aisholpan and her amazing dad? Aisholpan hunting for foxes in the Altai mountains. (Photo courtesy of Meghan Fitz-James). Dec. 2, 2016. [18][19][20] A 2014 article by a consultant on the film, Dennis Keen, suggests that women in Aisholpan's region faced a "knee-jerk reaction based on a traditionalist understanding of society and the sexes," such that their achievements "are dismissed by nearly every prominent falconer in Central Asia" because they represented "a serious disturbance in how things are done. Kyrgyzstan's Salburun festival began in 1997; Mongolia's festival began in Ulgii in 1999. NFS: What do Aisholpan and her family think of the film? Documentary photography and films are expected to be ethnographically sensitive and factual, so it is surprising that the creators of Aisholpan's story for Western audiences fail to acknowledge Makpal's eagle hunting prowess. You might notice how it's got a dedication at the end. I really enjoyed the research for this article. "I was looking around at pop culture at that time and you had Khaleesi, the mother of dragons [from Game of Thrones], you had Katniss Everdeen [from The Hunger Games], you had Rey [from Star Wars: The Force Awakens]. But Mayor and others still argue that the film creates a false impression, by failing to mention other Kazakh eagle huntresses, and exaggerating the patriarchal pressures that Aisholpan had to overcome. When you've got a mother eagle circling above, threatening to descend on you, you tend to do things pretty quickly.". Despite Dennis Keen's above-noted assertion, in a 8 March 2014 article entitled " " (https://egemen.kz/article/29988-on-ushinde-qondyrghan-qolgha-qyran) by Suleimen Mamet for Egemen Qazaqstan news, eagle huntress, Makpal Abrazakova, said: "Realizing my enthusiasm, my father deliberately took me to the eagle hunters on the slopes of Alatau [Qazaqstan] and introduced me to the eagle hunters. Finding the Right Balance Between Weird and Cinematic with Cinematographer Ross Riege, Documentary Filmmaker/Multi-platform Producer. <br /><br />Set in the beautifully mountains of Bayan -Ulgii province, in the far west of the open steppes of . Executive producers, Morgan Spurlock, Daisy Ridley, Jeremy Chilnick, Dan Cogan, Regina K. Scully, Marc H. Simon, Barbara Dobkin, Susan Maclaury.. 2013. Touching 4,000-Year-Old Royal Double Burial Found in Kazakhstan, Archaeologists Unearth the Golden Man of the Saka Burial Mound in Kazakhstan. Thanks, everyone! "Kazakhstan's Lone Female Eagle Hunter." Children commonly help to care for the eagles, go along on hunts, and attend eagle festivals. According to Kottak, ___________ is a sacred impersonal force existing in the universe, which can reside in people, animals, plants, and objects. Tradition stands in her way. 2013. That one, he says, came out of order, but nothing else did. Film Review 'The Eagle Huntress'. Will Dunn in the New Statesman is also bothered by the film's "re-enactment and editorialising", though he notes that without the imposed girl-power narrative it's "a film about the fox-hunting techniques of Mongolian Kazakhs, a subject that is not exactly a banker at the box office". Aimoldir's father, Mana Dayanbek, believes that Aimoldir is destined to be an eagle huntress because Kazakh nomads . What's he waiting for? But is it actually true? arana leagues club; paulo freire the banking concept of education citation; use table 6 1 to find the saturation mixing ratio "There is always a way to finish your film. Both Mongolia and the Kazakh community have a long history of women's equality in education, government, medicine, and other fields. By bringing together top experts and authors, this archaeology website explores lost civilizations, examines sacred writings, tours ancient places, investigates ancient discoveries and questions mysterious happenings. In 2013, Asher Svidensky photographed Kazakh brkitshi in Mongolia and with the help of his guide discovered Aisholpan Nurgaiv, the 13-year-old daughter of an eagle hunter. Karl Quinn is on facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on Twitter @karlkwin. In all, the men of the Nurgaiv clan have been hunting with eagles for 12 generations. That's to Grandpa. Bell: They're a very hospitable people. 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