Masked figures with machine guns march into the secondary school in Karatas, take the pupils hostage. They make no demands. Silent terror is their modus operandi. Seeing as the army will take two days to arrive due to a snowstorm, maths teacher Tazshi decides to assemble his own assault team.Read More »
Didar is a poet, but he cannot live from his poetry.
He has to write early in the mornings before setting out for his day job as a newspaper editor.
Didar is surrounded by a sense of crisis, not just because of his economic situation,
but also due to discussions at work about the diminishing significance of Kazakh culture,
dying languages, and the worldwide dominance of English.
He is questioning whether poetry is still relevant in today’s world,
but finds solace in contemplating a rebellious 19th-century poet, Makhambet Otemisuly.Read More »
A civil war rages across a vast, seemingly unpopulated landscape. As men fight and die, a mute woman searches for her son who has been kidnapped by child organ traffickers. She is accompanied by ‘the Steppenwolf’, a reformed ex-convict now hardened into a ruthless investigator. They resemble a bloody odd couple, but are determined to see their mission through, removing every obstacle – most of them human – in their path. Adilkhan’s Steppenwolf stands as a testament to his cinematic prowess, skilfully interweaving classic elements from stylised Westerns, road movies and bloody revenge dramas. Read More »
Synopsis:
After her husband mysteriously disappears, all the hardships of survival in the cold winter period in the far away village in Kazakhstan have to be carried out by Mariam, the mother of four small kids. To save the situation, she is forced to make some fatal decisions, but also to rediscover her femininity. When everything seems to start running better, her husband suddenly returns as if nothing has happened. Can the previous life flow be restored now?Read More »
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In the rural Soviet-era Kazakh village of Bazarbaï in the Kzylordinskye district, a reticent and impassive boy named Jasulan (Jasulan Asauov) watches his father ride away on horseback into the arid frontier before sneaking into the utility shed, activating the house portable generator, and returning to the living room – past the silent, disapproving gaze of his doting mother in the kitchen – to watch the faint, occasionally distorted black and white image of a Russian language television broadcast. Jasulan’s self-indulgent diversion, however, inevitably proves brief as the power abruptly goes out, having been disconnected by his pragmatic father who has unexpectedly returned home to the sound of the noisy, sputtering engine, and dismissively (and amusingly) scolds the boy for wasting scarce fuel “to see naked women”. Read More »
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Marat works as a personal driver in Almaty, capital of Kazakhstan. When he hits a Mercedes, the nightmare begins. The loan he accepts to pay for the damages puts him at the mercy of a Mafia boss.Read More »
A slice-of-life story on globalised capitalism’s impact on Kazakhstan, its contemporary urban culture, and the lonely road that patrons of the arts walk in a country where art is often overlooked and underappreciated.Read More »
A solitary philosophy student steers his directionless life toward a violent crime, spurred on by a post-Soviet order characterized by growing inequality, institutional corruption and a ruthless ethic. Inspired by Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Official selection of the prestigious Global Lens Collection presented by the Global Film Initiative.Read More »
Educational film by Darezhan Omirbayev for film schools students.This film shows us how directors are inspiring each other.Read More »