88 minutes

Director: Roko Belic

Producer: Roko Belic, Adrian Belic


Filmmaker Roko Belic follows Paul Pena; a blind, accomplished guitarist into the heartlands of Tuva to seek out and compete in the triennial throatsinging festival there.

If this wasn’t endearing / surreal enough, the back-story sounds like something out of ‘Amélie’ (2001); Pena stumbles across this fascinating sub-culture in the pre-internet world by listening to an old LP pressing of a throat singer by chance. And from there he teaches himself how to sing in the Tuvan throat singing style.

This bittersweet modern fairytale is filled full of anecdotes and tangential characters who are colourful eccentrics in their own right. As mad as ‘Beware of Mr. Baker’ (2012) with humanity and bittersweet pathos thrown in, ‘Genghis Blues’ is one of those lesser-known gems. It captures a series of chance events and characters that can only be described as a complex and deeply moving shaggy dog story.

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Roko went on to be nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards but has been largely quiet since with the exception of 2011’s ‘Happy’ shot over 12 different countries in collaboration with Tom Shadyac (Liar Lair, Bruce Almighty) as he tries to find a common thread about positive psychology in today’s society.

If you are intrigued by documentaries that take you to foreign lands, explore cultures you never knew existed, and illustrate one man’s stubbornness / quest to compete in a Tuvan throatsinging competition, check out ‘Genghis Blues’.


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Other Links for Trivia and Info on Genghis Blues


-Roko Belic’s childhood friend from Chicago was none other than Christopher Nolan. As a result he quite often shoots documentary reportage footage.

-Roko made this documentary on a shoestring budget. To edit the film he managed to score an editing suite for free. The caveat was he had to edit over-night when everyone had gone home. He felt so bad he wasn’t paying anything he asked the company what he could do to help? The answer came back he could cut the long ends of the carpet piles in the suite so they were all the same length, which he did with a small pair of scissors.

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Wikipedia entry


IMDB entry


IMDB Trivia page


Rotten Tomatoes





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