{"id":518360,"date":"2026-06-04T13:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T13:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/518360\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T13:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T13:49:13","slug":"tribeca-2026-doc-on-female-trucker-in-mongolia-colors-of-white-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/518360\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribeca 2026 Doc on Female Trucker in Mongolia ‘Colors of White Rock’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA determined female trucker is part of an endless-seeming metal snake winding through the Gobi Desert of Mongolia as she embarks on the hazardous journey toward the Chinese border. Such is life in \u201cMinegolia,\u201d as it has been dubbed. Now, a documentary by Khoroldorj Choijoovanchig takes us into the desert drive experience. Meet Colors of White Rock, world premiering at the Tribeca<\/a> Festival on Sunday, June 7, in the documentary competition.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEver since its shift toward liberalism after the Cold War, Mongolia has opened up its mines in the Gobi desert for exploitation \u2014 resulting in an onslaught of truck convoys transporting Mongolian coal to China,\u201d highlights a summary of the film. \u201cWithin this arduous, predominantly-male line of work, Maikhuu \u2014 a former taxi driver and hairdresser \u2014 stands alone as one of the only female truck drivers working the mining boom.\u201d The tenacious and candid woman is also a single mother focused on her young children\u2019s financial future.<\/p>\n

Colors of White Rock is a cinematic\u00a0trip into a world that will be new to many in the audience. The doc was executive produced by Chantal Perrin and produced by Tessa Louise Salom\u00e9 and Luc Sorrel. Choijoovanchig, who also handled the cinematography, co-wrote the doc with Perrin, Salom\u00e9 and Kate Kennelly. The editor is Simon Le Berre. International<\/a> sales are handled by MetFilm Sales.<\/p>\n

The Tribeca website promises \u201ca deeply immersive work that presents the striking human and environmental costs of \u2018Minegolia.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tColors of White Rock<\/p>\n

\n\tChoijoovanchig and Perrin talked to The Hollywood Reporter about the hard work going into the doc, the arduous work of the desert truck drivers and why it tells a universal story.<\/p>\n

\n\tJust like the long, tedious journeys of the truckers through the desert, the doc didn\u2019t have an easy ride. \u201cIt started with this nine-minute short,\u201d recalls Choijoovanchig. \u201cI was doing some promotional videos for mining companies, and I saw this enormous line [of trucks] with my own eyes. I was flying a drone, and that image was really inspiring \u2013 this big iron snake crawling in the desert.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen he talked to the people, he also felt that \u201cthe drivers were really passionate about their jobs, but it was sad because they were so tired, like zombies, really working hard. So, I thought I wanted to make a film about this.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tKhoroldorj Choijoovanchig <\/p>\n

\n\tPerrin asked him to put together the short video, really liked it and was in awe of Maikhuu, the female protagonist. \u201cShe is amazing, she is street-wise and so sweet,\u201d Perrin tells THR. \u201cI love her, she\u2019s so brave and wicked and clever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tColors of White Rock still took seven years to complete, with the COVID-19 pandemic among the challenges that the team had to overcome. And there were hundreds of hours of footage. \u201cMaking a story out of 600 hours of footage was a challenge,\u201d shares Perrin. \u201cWe ended up with the 45th version of the edit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe doc allows Maikhuu to become visible to a world that may largely not be aware of the social plight of the Mongolian truck drivers and the harsh working conditions and lack of health care they are used to. <\/p>\n

Choijoovanchig didn\u2019t necessarily think of her story as either a local or a universal one. \u201cEvery human story is universal, I believe, so, as a filmmaker, I approach the story not as local, foreign or global. I always approach stories as human stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tChantal Perrin<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Perrin and other international collaborators helped him highlight key takeaways for audiences outside of Mongolia. \u201cBecause coal is the main export commodity of Mongolia, it brings healthy export income to the country,\u201d Choijoovanchig explains. \u201cBut it also comes at a cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPerrin was interested in the aspects of human and environmental exploitation. \u201cI am always concerned with ecology and the environment, and I know that this is happening everywhere \u2013 we\u2019re digging, and we are destroying and causing damage,\u201d she tells THR. \u201cSo, of course, one of the reasons that I got involved was this political and human rights aspect of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong other things, Colors of White Rock touches on how a lot of Mongolians move from the countryside to the city, destroying the traditional nomadic lifestyle. \u201cBecause of natural disasters, we get droughts, and the herders and nomads in the countryside suffer, and they lose their animals,\u201d Choijoovanchig tells THR. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why more people from the countryside go into the mining jobs, and some of them drive these trucks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmaker summarizes his hope for the doc this way. \u201cHopefully, it will raise awareness [among] the decision makers, so that these people\u2019s situation can improve a bit. I hope this film makes up people\u2019s minds to help improve their working conditions. As a fellow Mongolian, I know [that] we live in a country that has been trying to develop for the last 30 years, since we became a capitalist country and free-market economy in the 1990s, but we are still sandwiched between two giant [authoritarian] neighbors, Russia and China. We are trying to be a democratic country, a free nation, but economically, as a mineral-rich country, we are really tied to them. This is a kind of metaphor behind this film.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A determined female trucker is part of an endless-seeming metal snake winding through the Gobi Desert of Mongolia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[18,117,19,1452,17,327,73585,224165,189034],"class_list":["post-518360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-international","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-tribeca","tag-tribeca-2026","tag-tribeca-festival"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116692161438507707","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}