Khadak - Press

GERMAN PRESS

A parable, fairy-tale-like, and yet realistic, archaic and poetic. KHADAK is a meditation of striking pictures about the destruction of Nature which will bring about the destruction of humanity.

Zeitpunkt

The filmmakers have created with their detailed knowledge a memorial to their love of Mongolia. KHADAK remains a poetic journey through Mongolia, wrapped in a tempting soundtrack of Western and Eastern Music.

Fachpresse EPD Film

Astonishing images which burn themselves in our memories.

TZ

The audience does not absorb the landscape through its eyes, but rather, nature throws its look back upon us and sees us in our humanity, sad and vulnerable. Through its indescribably beautiful pictures, this film is a parable about the extremely real ecological disaster in Mongolia, as well as a legacy of magical resistance.

Berlin Live

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

The very poetry of the aesthetic treatment of the plot conveys the impression that everything is illuminated. And when the film ends, the memory of the outstanding photography continues to haunts us.

An entrancing looking and lushly scored magical-realist fable.

Variety

Cineuropa

Brosens and Woodworth have a directorial touch to match the ravishing landscapes and flinty people. It's part political thriller, part social document, and it well deserved its Lion of the Future award for best first feature.

Time Magazine

This first feature of documentary filmmakers Brosens and Woodworth is a dazzling visual symphony set in the steppes of Mongolia. (�) Brosens and Woodworth�s visual talent explodes off the screen.

De Standaard, Belgium

Be prepared for something that's overwhelming in its beauty.

National Post, Canada

To attempt to situate KHADAK in the canon of Western cinema would be futile. From every point of view - photography, direction, narration - the film of Brosens and Woodworth belongs to an imagination distant from our own. A film of pure images, emotional in part due to images of nature intact, of snow and coal, and colours sharp enough to inspire fear. Working with ellipses, the frames dig at your soul, reaching an empathy that transmits emotions well beyond the simple narrative storyline. (�) The film is a cry of alarm for a land, Mongolia, crushed by unbearable modernity.

Close-Up, Italy

A poetic and unsettling film, full of symbols and futuristic illusions set in an unknown and fascinating East. How to interpret such a complex film? This sorrowful and accusatory work is the product of a complex understanding and is open to various interpretations offered to us by two Western directors, fruit of their study and time spent in Mongolia. An ensemble of transposed suggestions in multiple form immerse the viewer in an unusual and strange world marked by the fantastic and the magical. A meeting between East and West that reflects universal dynamics.

Non Solo Cinema, Italy

Filmmakers Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth infuse Khadak with a thoroughly memorable sense of style, punctuating the proceedings with a variety of starkly photographed shots. (Their) complete confidence in their material results in an unmistakable feeling of authenticity.

Reel Film Reviews

Khadak is a visually breathtaking contemporary tale rich in symbolism and metaphors about the way traditional Mongolian nomadic life is being deteriorated by urbanization and political corruption. Narratively complex, aesthetically an ingenious and original miracle.

Het Nieuwsblad, Belgium

By far the best international feature I've seen here (Sundance) is Peter Brosens and Jessica Hope Woodworth's "Khadak." This Belgian/German narrative tells of a young man and his family forced to evacuate their home in Mongolia's frozen steppes when the animals that they depend on for survival fall victim to a plague sweeping the land. "Khadak"'s beautiful widescreen cinematography and series of powerful single-shot scenes display the emotional turmoil of its main characters as they are forced to work in a mine and adjust to development. Slowly and hauntingly, "Khadak" portrays modernization and its tension with the traditional values of a nation's people. In the end, the film boasts a dreamlike thirty minutes that are so on point and effective they make you wish Lynch had taken a few tips from Brosens and Woodworth when constructing the second half of "Inland Empire."

Michael Lerman, www.indiewire.com

U.S. Press

"A marvelously acted, brave and absorbing film. Catch it whenever and wherever you can."

Salon

CRITIC'S PICK! "Beautiful and mysterious... Brosens and Woodworth have a powerful visual style to match their arty ambitions."

New York Magazine

"Gorgeous...Khadak is a trippy spectacle." -

New York Times

*** (3/4) "Charming...beautifully filmed and energetically acted." -

NY Post

*** (3/4) "Directors Peter Brossens and Jessica Woodworth create startling, deliberate imagery that's almost too voluptuous."

Newsday

"You'll be spellbound ...it's never less than stunning to look at." -

NY Daily News

"A highly imaginative film, beautifully scored and well-acted."

Film Journal

**** (4/6) "Largely forsaking Western-style linearity for a more visionary mode, Khadak doesn't so much depict the trauma of displacement as embody it, channeling its political rage into stark, frontal compositions and jarring formal breaks, including a dissonant music-video number. Ultimately less concerned with individuals than with the land itself, the film captures the icy vastness of the Mongolian steppes with a surreal grandeur that occasionally recalls Werner Herzog." -

Time Out NY

"A gorgeous panoply of natural wonders and far-flung mysticism, Khadak is a unique adventure. " -

New York Press

*** (3/4) "Khadak is striking, even breathtaking...it gorgeously recalls Fellini."

Chicago Tribune

"Its riches are there to be discovered, admired, and often loved." -

New City Chicago

"Brosens and Woodworth understand the power of striking images...this is certainly wonderful to look at." -

Time Out Chicago

"Well staged and photographed, with stirring aerial images." -

Chicago Reader

"Magical...visually stunning!"

Seattle Times

"A gorgeous, stirring narrative!"

The Stranger (Seattle)

"Striking."

Seattle Weekly

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BELGIAN PRESS