France’s Urban Sales has released the first trailer for Zoljargal Purevdash’s debut feature If Only I Could Hibernate, which premieres in Un Certain Regard on May 21 as the first Mongolian film ever in the Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection.

Produced by Urban Factory Production and Purevdash’s Amygdala Films, the film is set in the heavily polluted yurt district of Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, where a teenaged boy struggles to escape his poor background by winning a science competition to earn a scholarship. 

When his illiterate mother finds a job in the countryside, she leaves him and his younger siblings to fend for themselves. »