As the only queer film festival in Mongolia, the Beyond the Blue Sky Queer Film Festival is tasked with creating space for queerness in a shifting society. In this essay we situate this distinct film festival within and against the social, political, and economic currents of queerphobic media and representations in rapidly changing Mongolia. We also show how queer Mongolian filmmakers and their audiences respond, contest, and rework these currents, highlighting some of the local films that screened at the festival.
Despite its storied history, Mongolia, or Mongol Uls, is a relatively young country still in the process of constructing its national identity. After transitioning to democracy in the 1990s, Mongolia is now seeing a transformation of its entire society: “With the disappearance of the overarching communist ideology that had dictated the political landscape of the country for nearly seven decades . . . symbols and markers of national community...
