Kazakh

Two Kazakh brothers are about to lose their ancestral tumbledown house to corruption and nepotism while their little sister loses her capacity to breathe and their mother loses her mind.
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IMDB: Nice and sad Fairytale
I was pretty surprised to see this rare Kazach film. First of all it touches upon great Asian folk atmosphere and has wonderful music, partly composed by master of soviet electronic music Edward Artemeyev. The director shows great visionary in the film. Some parts of the film are made in colour-the rest are black and white. The story is also something new for me: a blind bagger-girl meets a steppen killer, who decides to protect her on her hard life way. They meet a lot of dangers and wise old men and stayed alive after really creepy moments. Finally they reached the girl’s motherland. Here the ways of them two separate really dramatically. One can see some gore moments in this philosophic tale.Read More »

Kairat, the first feature film from „Kazakh new wave“ film director Darezhan Omirbaev, tells the story of a young man from a village in Kazakh steppe and his initiation into life in the big city.

KAIRAT
Darezhan Omirbaev, Kazakhstan, 1991; 72m
“This 34-year-old filmmaker has invented an entire universe,” wrote Jean-Michel Frodon in Le Monde, and he was right. Darezhan Omirbaev may well have been inspired by Bresson and Hitchcock, but he has indeed created his very own universe in the five films he’s made since the late 80s. The disconnected events of his films are simple – a boy travelling on a train from the steppe to the city, riding on a bus, going to a movie and brushing bare arms with his date, wandering through a train yard. But every form, every movement, every gesture seems to have found its precise poetic place, and the emotional terrain contained within his first feature feels as vast as an ocean. Kairat is the name of Omirbaev’s autobiographically inspired hero, who moves through life exactly as many of us do when we’re adolescents – awkwardly, in bewildered confusion, guarding a wealth of emotions deep within us like a buried treasure. One of the best films of the 90s.Read More »

The movies of Rustam Khamdamov are impossible to find in the West, and for the most part in his native Russia as well.

Vokaldy paralelder [Vocal Parallels] , which happily has reached its audience, but only after nine years of production due to numerous obstacles and stoppages. What is THIS film about? Again, no definite plot, but a kind of a concert-film. You most probably exclaim in astonishment, absolutely disappointed: What?! A concert? Yes, it’s a surreal, impressionistic concert of classical opera pieces performed by several retired Soviet opera divas: Roza Dzhamanova, Araksiia Davtian, Bibigul’ Tulegenova, and the late Erik Salim-Meriuert (Kurmangaliev), a fantastic countertenor.Read More »