33-year-old Gerel Byamba is a complex woman: a fiery nationalist, shaman, violent gang leader and indignant, hooded avenger. As the leader of the all-female, ultra-nationalist organisation Gerel Khas, she fights to protect Mongolia from sex work and Chinese miscegenation. She fights for women’s equality, but abandons her son at the altar of the nationalist cause. 

This is the premise of Daughter of Genghis, helmed by journalists Kristoffer Juel Poulsen, Christian Als and Knud Brix. The documentary will have its world premiere in the F:ACT Competition of this year’s CPH:DOX (13-24 March).

The Danish festival bills it as “a seven-year-long tale from the Mongolian underworld,” and a picture “about a nomadic people struggling to protect their identity and freedom in a rapidly changing country.” 

“We experience Gerel Byamba’s conflicted, violent life during a time when cracks of doubt appear in her otherwise solid armour. Is violence the right path for Mongolia and herself? How can she protect the future of her people? Your ideological map of the world is thoroughly challenged along the way,” the festival copy elaborates.

Daughter of Genghis was produced by The Lost Leonardo producer Andreas Dalsgaard for Denmark’s Elk Film, in co-production with France’s Pumpernickel Films and Sweden’s Mantaray Film. Attached broadcasters are Denmark’s DR and Norway’s VGTV. Taskovski Films is selling the feature worldwide.

Check out our exclusive poster below: