The story of Aisholpan, the 13-year-old protagonist in The Eagle Huntress, told over the course of an hour and 41 minutes makes the audience laugh, hold their breath, whoop and applaud as one.
This story follows a girl who does something only men have been doing for generations — eagle hunting. Shot like a movie, it is hard to believe that this is, in its purest form, an unscripted documentary.
With her father’s help and a beautiful golden eagle by her side, Aisholpan becomes the first female eagle huntress in 12 generations of her Kazakh family. She is an unassuming teenager who loves her nail polish and hair bows, but is also a complete badass unafraid to climb precarious mountainsides to steal a young eagle from its nest. This movie is her journey from wishing her father would teach her to hunt with eagles to winning all our hearts when she emerges as a master huntress.
The director Otto Bell discovered Aisholpan through a series of BBC photos that showed her training with her father’s eagle and followed her story to the Altai mountains. The beauty of the movie lies in its genuine portrayal of the life that the nomadic people lead amidst harsh winters and unforgiving landscapes. The cinematography also sets this movie apart as Bell and his three-member crew used drones and cranes to ensure that they captured every perspective of her journey to becoming the first female eagle huntress. This is a beautifully made inspiring movie for audiences of all ages.
