A promise, an old, destroyed horse head violin (so called because its long slender neck is decorated at the end with a carved, wooden horse’s head) and a song believed lost lead the singer Urna back to Outer Mongolia. The journey through the land of her fathers, however, turns out differently to what she expected.



A promise, an old, destroyed horse head violin and a song believed lost lead the singer Urna back to Outer Mongolia. Her grandmother was forced to destroy her once loved violin in the tumult of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The ancient song of the Mongols, “The Two Horses of Genghis Khan”, was engraved on the violin’s neck. Only the violin’s neck and head survived the cultural storm. Now it is time to fulfil the promise that Urna made to her grandmother.

Arrived in Ulan Bator, Urna brings the still intact parts of the violin – head and neck – to Hicheengui, a renowned maker of horse head violins, who will build a new body for the old instrument in the coming weeks. Then, Urna leaves for the interior to look there for the song’s missing verses. But she will be disappointed. None of the people whom she meets on the way appears to still know the old melody of the Mongols.


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Genre	Documentation
Length	91:00
Format	1:1,85
35 mm	2610 metres, 5 reels
Sound	Dolby SRD
Language	Mongolian with English subtitles
Year	2009

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