In Uisenma Borchu‘s BLACK MILK, which ran in this year‘s Panorama section at the Berlinale, two sisters and two cultures encounter each other. Wessi, played by the director herself, has lived in a German metropolis for a long time, Ossi is a nomad in Mongolia. BLACK MILK, which is almost entirely set in Mongolia, uncovers their unfamiliarity with each other layer after layer. Wessi‘s openness, her confident ways in dealing with men and talking about desire contrasts with Ossi, who wants to wait for her husband in order to slaughter an animal. Values which can‘t easily be transmitted from one culture to another are debated on. Borchu, basing the conflict on her own history as a Mongolian migrant coming to the GDR, shows two seemingly incompatible identities, the partiarchal and racist structures in both societies, and the urgent desire to break out.

Lili Hering