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Uisenma Borchu, born 1984 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, came to Germany in 1989 and studied French, linguistics and history in Mainz from 2004 to 2006. In 2006 she began studying documentary film and television journalism at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film (HFF) in Munich. Her first documentary short film "Donne-moi plus" was screened at the Cannes Festival in 2008 as part of the Next Generation short film programme curated by Germans Films, the national information and advisory center for the promotion of German films worldwide. In the same year, it was also shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others. Her first feature-length documentary film "Ein Himmel voller Geigen" (2011), a portrait of the 89-year-old, physically severely restricted violinist Irmgard Hitzig, was awarded the Megaherz Filmschool Award at the DOK.fest Munich 2012.
Her HFF graduation film, the feature film "Schau mich nicht so an" ("Don't Look At Me That Way") in which she also plays one of the lead characters, celebrated its premiere at Filmfest München in 2015. The drama tells the story of the difficult love triangle between two unequal women and the ageing father of one of the women. At the Munich Filmfest, the film received the FIPRESCI Prize; at the Bavarian Film Prize 2016, Borchu was awarded the prize for Best Young Director. In June 2016 "Schau mich nicht so an" was released in German cinemas.
In May 2016, Uisenma Borchu was named "Mongolian Woman of the Year" in the category Art/Culture/Sport by the Association for the Development of Mongolian Women in Europe. The following year, her first play celebrated its premiere at the Münchner Kammerspiele: "Nachts, als die Sonne für mich schien", in which she addressed her own life story and again played a lead role.
In summer 2018 Borchu began shooting her second feature film "Schwarze Milch" ("Black Milk"), which also has autobiographical elements. The story tells of a Mongolian woman (played by Borchu herself) living in Germany who visits her sister in Mongolia and has to examine the roots of her family and her own identity. "Schwarze Milch" premiered in the Panorama of the Berlinale 2020 and was released in German cinemas in the summer of the same year.