From Almaty to Moscow and Paris, filmmaker and editor Rinat Bekchintaev has built a creative identity shaped by movement, memory and displacement. In this interview with Novastan, he discusses Almaty’s cinematic power, his relationship with Kazakhstan, his work on films such as Salarié oriental, Crypto Rush and JOQTAU, and the independent cinema community he is helping to build in France.

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From Almaty to Paris

Novastan : You studied in Almaty and then continued your studies at the Moscow School of New Cinema. What did Almaty give you as a filmmaker, visually, emotionally or intellectually?

Rinat Bekchintaev: Listen, Almaty is simply an unbelievably cool place. I can talk for hours about how cinematic this city is. It has its own distinctive, authentic vibe, its own tone. There is a kind of noir quality on foggy days, and the mountains, of course, create this “wall of the horizon”. But the most important thing is the people, they are very open and responsive. I am still in touch with my friends from Almaty, and I collaborate with people connected to cinema and the visual arts.

Read also on Novastan: Que sont devenues les premières salles de cinéma du Kazakhstan-Oriental ?

And of course, I dream of making not just one film in Kazakhstan, and in Almaty in particular. For example, I am currently at the development stage of a film called I Want to Be a Geologist Like My Father, a film about how ecological trauma becomes part of collective memory and continues to exist in people and landscapes decades after the disaster itself.

I studied engineering at Almaty University of Power Engineering and Telecommunications (AUPET) for five years, then took screenwriting courses at the Open Literary School. At the time, it did not seem important to me, as is usually the case. But after several years, I realized that it had given me a very important impulse to take up cinema.

Your biography is linked to several geographies: Sevastopol, Almaty, Moscow, Paris. How do these places coexist in your creative identity?

Yes, I have quite a complex, nomadic path. Sevastopol and Crimea are the most difficult starting point for me, and I think I still have to reflect on this original point of my journey. I don’t know, my mother took me away from there to Almaty when I was very young. I spent my entire conscious life in Almaty, and perhaps the only thing I can identify myself as now is an Almaty person, strange as that may sound.

Moscow also gave me a lot that was very important. It was part of my formation, an education at the Moscow School of New Cinema that mattered a lot to me, and people with whom I am still in contact.

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I have not been in Paris for very long, and it is probably difficult to speak about it yet, but again, it is another chapter: new people, a new language, everything new. But I try to continue creating interaction with reality, with people and institutions. We created an association of independent filmmakers, K1NO1 (Kino 11), wrote a manifesto, organize screenings and discussions in Paris, and run a Telegram channel. Anyone can join the community, participate in events and so on. There is a website, Instagram and Telegram. In general, we are creating a kind of community, and it is international, not only made up of immigrants. I think this is important. I don’t know, at first glance it all looks like chaos, but I think it all mixes quite well in my ghostly creative identity.

Do you consider yourself a Central Asian filmmaker, a post-Soviet filmmaker, a filmmaker in exile, or do such definitions seem too limiting to you?

Perhaps for a career it is useful to manifest oneself in some way along these lines, but I do not think I would really manage to do that. I think all these labels coexist within me.

Has your perception of Kazakhstan, Central Asia or the post-Soviet space changed since moving to France?

Before moving to France, I came to Kazakhstan. I had not been in my native Almaty for about five years. And I was absolutely delighted. It seemed to me that everything was developing very well. Again, forgive me for being so complimentary, but I truly think that Kazakhstan is not stagnating at all, in any respect, and in the field of art, definitely not. After moving to France, I think it was only here that I began seriously considering the possibility of making a feature film in Kazakhstan. Perhaps the outside view is very important for me.

Note from Novastan: Bekchintaev’s work moves between directing and editing, fiction and documentary, personal stories and broader social questions. His filmography includes Salarié oriental (Vostochny rabochy), a short fiction film shaped by migration, labour and emotional distance; editing work on Crypto Rush, a documentary on the rise of cryptocurrency; and collaborations on Kazakhstani films such as Aruan Anartay’s JOQTAU and Dreams of the Sky Mausoleum.

Your films and artistic universe

One of your early fiction films, Salarié oriental (Vostochny rabochy), follows a story of emotional distance shaped by class, language and migration. Even its title seems to raise questions of labour, identity and perhaps irony. What story did you want to tell in this film?

The story in this film is simple: the impossibility of love because of class, language and other differences. But that is my interpretation now, ten years after the premiere. Perhaps at the time it was different. And of course, I believe that everyone should identify something for themselves in it. That, it seems to me, is the power of cinema.

I am also very glad that this film was once shown in Almaty, at the Arman cinema, the first cinema I ever visited in my life.

How did the idea for Salarié oriental come about, and what does this title mean to you?

The idea for the film came to my co-author Egor Shevchenko in a dream. After that, we developed it very seriously, and a lot came from reflecting on my perception of Moscow, as I had only just arrived there to study at the time.

The title appeared by chance. The sound designer named the folder with the files that way, we noticed it and immediately fixed it for ourselves. Before that, I do not even remember what the working title was.

You also worked as an editor on Crypto Rush, a documentary exploring the world of cryptocurrency across several countries and protagonists. What attracted you to this topic, and what did editing a film about such an abstract and global phenomenon teach you?

I was the editor on this film. It was a very important experience. We worked very closely with the director. At the time, she was very deeply immersed in the subject, and she had a very global project: several countries, protagonists and so on. In general, the most important thing was that we managed to combine a cinematic image and an informational one in this film. And I also learned a little more about crypto and so on.

Among your editing works is a movie connected to Kazakhstan, Aruan Anartay’s JOQTAU, rooted in Kazakhstani stories, landscapes and visual imagination. What attracts you to films shaped by this geography and cinematic world?

I think Kazakhstan has that authentic cinematic image that has enormous potential. This image consists of many elements, and it cannot be repeated anywhere else in the world.

JOQTAU is a film by my friend Aruan Anartay, and it is one of those examples where this image was captured. We searched for solutions for this film for a long time, and in the end, during editing, we found certain approaches that helped us bring this image out.

Directing, editing and cinematic language

You are both a director and an editor. Does working with editing make you a more disciplined director?

Yes, absolutely. As a director, I understand the editing process and try to make it less costly. In general, I believe that a contemporary director should be able to edit, shoot and work with sound themselves too.

Editing often remains invisible to the viewer, but it largely shapes the emotion and meaning of a film. In your view, what makes editing good?

It is not only about comfortable cuts, but about building the structure of the film, as well as creating refrains and syntagms. This happens almost entirely at the editing table. Not to mention rhythm and the flow of time. Sometimes a film comes together during editing, and this is not only my opinion.

Also read on Novastan: Le cinéma kazakh à l’honneur : retour sur la sixième édition du Festival du film kazakh à Paris

When you direct, do you already “edit” the film in your head during shooting, or do you try to leave space for discovery at the editing stage?

Yes, I do actually already edit in my head, and this gives me the opportunity to do fewer identical takes and shoot more variations of a scene. I felt this when I was shooting my film Gobelin, one of my own fiction projects.

What usually comes to you first: an image, a character, a place or a conflict?

Some kind of phenomenon or life situation appears first, or some place, or a figure, I don’t know, something that creates a sustained interest in exploring it. That is the starting point for a film.

What faces, landscapes, pauses or gestures attract your camera?

Those that transmit either vitality or a hauntological feeling.

Paris, emigration and artistic transformation

What are the main difficulties faced by a filmmaker who arrives in Paris without previous professional connections, a familiar linguistic environment or the usual film-production system?

Yes, there are many problems. First of all, not being embedded in the environment, the lack of connections, and the language too. That is probably the most difficult part, but I am trying to move in that direction. There is no shortage of ideas, and the film-production system is more or less clear.

Does emigration provide artistic freedom, or does it primarily create practical constraints?

Both. An outside view always gives a new lens on reality. Also, the reality around me is new to me, so one way or another I find interest in it. As for practical constraints, they always exist, and emigration intensifies them. It is difficult, but in my view not fatal.

Kazakhstan and Central Asian cinema

Which Kazakhstani or Central Asian filmmakers should French-speaking audiences know more about?

Aruan Anartay, a Kazakhstani director, screenwriter and producer whose debut feature JOQTAU brought a poetic, documentary-inflected vision of the Kazakh steppe to international festivals; and Katerina Suvorova, an Almaty-born documentary filmmaker known for Sea Tomorrow, which premiered at Locarno’s Critics’ Week, and for her work on Mediastan.

Which of your films would you advise Novastan readers to start with, and why?

They can watch Vostochny rabochy / Salarié oriental here.

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Interview by

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief at Novastan-English

Maya Ivanova, Contributor at Novastan

Thank you for reading this article! If you have time, we would appreciate your feedback, either through this anonymous form or by email at editorial@novastan.org. Thank you very much!

The post Rinat Bekchintaev: “Almaty has an authentic cinematic image that cannot be repeated anywhere else” appeared first on Novastan English.

Kyrgyz director Tolomush Zhanybekov turns his camera toward the people and places often left outside the frame: cemetery guards, pensioners selling their belongings, children facing humiliation, brothers bound by care and solitude. Born in Balykchy and based in Kyrgyzstan’s contemporary film scene, he builds a cinema rooted in roads, bazaars, industrial landscapes and social margins.

His films The Road, Birdsong, Balyk and Barakholka reveal a Kyrgyzstan far from the usual images of mountains and nomadic traditions. Through silence, fragile encounters and carefully chosen locations, Tolomush Zhanybekov explores loneliness, vulnerability and the quiet dignity of people living on the edges of public attention.

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In an interview with Novastan, the young filmmaker discusses his childhood, his relationship with cinema, the places that shape his work, the ethics of filming vulnerable people and the emergence of a new generation of Kyrgyz directors seeking to show an authentic, unvarnished Central Asia.

Novastan : Could you tell us about your journey into cinema? When did you first feel that you wanted to become a director?

Tolomush Zhanybekov : Since childhood, my main friend was the television. I hardly ever left the house: I watched all kinds of films and, figuratively speaking, spoke with the screen. Stories for my own films were constantly being born and developing in my head. Most likely, the desire to become a director came from that childhood solitude.

You were born in Balykchy, and several of your films seem very closely connected to specific places. Could you tell us where The Road, Birdsong, Balyk and Barakholka were shot, and why you chose those particular locations?

My graduation film, The Road, was shot in the city of Balykchy, where I was born and grew up. It is a very textured, visually rich place. Birdsong was shot in the village of Kaji-Say, in the Issyk-Kul region. In Soviet times, it was a thriving industrial town where coal was mined, and there was a uranium tailings site nearby. Today, there is a persistent feeling that time froze there somewhere in the 1990s. Balyk and Barakholka were shot in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.

For readers discovering your work for the first time, could you briefly present each of these films in two or three sentences: what is it about, where does it take place and what drew you to this story?

The Road: The story of a 65-year-old cemetery guard. He lives and works far from the noise of the world, and in this silence, alone with those who have passed away, he paradoxically feels much more comfortable than among the living.

Birdsong: A documentary about two brothers. The elder brother finds it difficult to go outside, and the only person who looks after him is his younger brother, who goes to the village centre every day in search of casual work. Their meeting at the end of the day is the most important thing in their lives. Since childhood, I had been interested in what it means to have a brother, how such relationships work, how brothers support one another and what they talk about. One day, in a small village, I met these protagonists and understood that I had to make a film about them.

Barakholka: A documentary about pensioners. Every weekend, near my home, they set up a street market where they sell their old, vintage belongings. I have always been fascinated by watching them, their daily lives and the past they are selling off.

Balyk: A short fiction film about a teenager who stutters heavily, which makes it difficult for him to communicate with others. It is partly a personal story, as I faced this problem myself.

For readers who do not know Kyrgyzstan well, how would you describe places such as Balykchy, Bishkek, Barakholka or Kaji-Say, geographically, socially and personally?

Balykchy is the city of my childhood, in northern Kyrgyzstan, surrounded by picturesque but harsh landscapes. A place of winds and memories.

Bishkek is the city where I grew up. It is a noisy capital, where people from all regions come in search of a better life, creating a bubbling social melting pot.

Read also on Novastan: Kirghizstan : les déchets radioactifs continuent de polluer les eaux de Kadji Saï

Kaji-Say is an abandoned industrial trace of a bygone era, squeezed between the mountains and Lake Issyk-Kul, where history itself seems to have come to a standstill.

Barakholka is not just a market, but a living open-air social archive, where people’s destinies are revealed through old objects.

How important is location to you in the process of making a film? Do you first find a place and build a story around it, or does a character appear first, after which you look for the right space?

In my work, location is a fully-fledged character. It conveys the atmosphere of the film in its own right. Sometimes I see a textured place, and a plot immediately begins to take shape within it. And sometimes I work the other way around: first the image of a character is born, and then I look for a space that could organically receive that character or emphasise their inner state.

Your films often focus on people who usually remain outside public attention: children, pensioners, solitary figures, people living or working in difficult social conditions. Why are you drawn to these kinds of protagonists?

In contemporary Kyrgyz cinema, these layers of the population are undeservedly neglected. They are rarely shown on screen. Mentally, all my characters are united by a deep inner loneliness, and it is precisely this vulnerability, this invisibility to the wider world, that attracts and moves me most.

In The Road, the road seems to be something more than just a physical space. What does it mean to you?

You are right. During my student years, I first came face to face with death: every autumn during my four years of study, someone in my family died. This tragic cycle forced me to think constantly about death and even, subconsciously, to wait for it. It may sound naive now, but at the time I desperately wanted to make sense of and understand a person’s departure. From these experiences came the metaphor of the road as a path between worlds, a transit from life into non-being.

Silence and atmosphere also play a very strong role in The Road. Is silence important in your cinema?

Yes, absolutely. To return to the previous question: to make sense of such fundamental things as life and death, silence was vitally necessary for me. In addition, as a director, I feel very close to a pure visual language. I like it when thoughts, feelings and dramaturgy can be conveyed to the viewer without unnecessary words, through pauses and the atmosphere of the frame.

Birdsong was your first documentary film. What pushed you towards documentary cinema?

By nature, I am a contemplative person. Since childhood, I could sit for hours and openly observe people, although now, of course, I do it more carefully and tactfully. Documentary is the foundation of cinema. It always contains genuine organic life, living human faces and real stories that cannot be artificially constructed within the framework of a fiction script.

How did you meet the protagonists of Birdsong, and how did you manage to build trust with them?

I was walking through the centre of the village and sat down at a bus stop, observing the local residents. From a distance, a man wearing a kalpak approached me. We began talking. From what he told me, I understood that he lived with his elder brother, was constantly looking for any kind of casual work and spoke about him all the time, with immense tenderness and anxiety. I suggested that he appear in a film, he agreed, and I immersed myself in their fragile, closed world.

Read also on Novastan: Vie et mœurs des déchets uraniques centrasiatiques

The trust between us probably emerged on the level of pure energy. My original intention was to make this film with great love and respect for them. I think the viewer feels that warmth through the screen and through the way the camera angles were chosen.

When you film real people, especially vulnerable people, how do you decide what can be shown and what should remain off camera?

It is always an extremely difficult inner dilemma. In documentary cinema, you very quickly become close to your protagonists. They become dear to you, and subconsciously there is a strong desire to protect them, to defend them, to show them from their best side.

During filming, I gather a lot of material. At the editing stage, when the final story is being built, I always mentally put myself in their place: how would I feel if this personal information became public? Here it is critically important to sense the fine line between artistic truth and ethics, to understand what needs to remain for the dramaturgy and what must be hidden from the viewer’s eyes forever.

In Balyk, the main character is a boy who lives between school, work at the market, loneliness and humiliation. Where did this story begin?

The word Balykchy means “fisherman” in Kyrgyz. In childhood, our family lived by cooking and selling fish. In addition, during my school years, I stuttered very badly. I remember that in the lower grades we had speed-reading tests: we had to read as many words as possible in one minute. In second grade, my classmates read between 40 and 65 words, while because of my stutter I managed only nine.

It was an enormous stress and trauma. At home, alone, I could read completely normally. I would memorise texts in advance, but as soon as I stood in front of the class, everything collapsed. The plot of Balyk grew out of these painful personal memories.

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What does the title Balyk mean to you? Is the fish a symbol in the film?

Yes, the fish is a key symbol here. When you cut or kill a fish, it does not make a single sound. Its “facial” expression does not change; you cannot read pain or emotion in it. My main character is locked in the same way in his muteness and loneliness in the face of a cruel outside world. He suffers silently, like a fish.

The market in Balyk is not only a workplace, but an entire social world. What did you want to show through this environment?

I wanted to capture our authentic bazaar. It is a unique space, always incredibly interesting to be in and to observe: all kinds of types, destinies, tragedies and comedies collide there. Moreover, the East is historically and culturally tied to bazaar culture. It is its heart and the mirror of society.

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Balyk is a Kyrgyz-French co-production. How did this international collaboration come about, and did it influence the development of the film or its reception?

In 2024, a Script Lab for authors from Central Asia was organised in Kazakhstan as part of the Post Space film camp. My mentor was Katya Khazak, a producer from France. At that time, I already had a rough cut of Balyk. I showed her the material, she liked the film very much and offered to help complete it at a high international post-production level.

Our project was supported by the European fund Creative Europe MEDIA. Thanks to this collaboration, we shortened and significantly improved the editing, and carried out professional sound correction and colour correction. This greatly raised the artistic level of the film.

Could you explain the title Kesilish joldogu pensionerlerdin maekterinen (Barakholka)? How would you translate it into English or French?

In English, the title translates as: Conversations of Pensioners at a Crossroads. The title contains a double meaning: the physical crossroads of the streets where they stand, and the crossroads of life at which they find themselves in the twilight of their days.

Why did you decide to film pensioners at Barakholka? What did you want to convey through their conversations?

I wanted to reveal their deep social loneliness, but at the same time to show their desperate, touching attempt to remain part of society, to be among people. Through their everyday conversations, sometimes sad, sometimes paradoxical, an astonishingly sincere and unembellished life emerges.

The outside view of Kyrgyzstan often focuses on mountains, nomadic traditions and impressive landscapes. Your films, by contrast, turn more towards everyday life, urban or semi-urban spaces, roads, markets and social margins. Is this a conscious choice?

Yes, it is an entirely conscious artistic choice. Our country is incredibly full of contrasts. Of course, we have majestic mountains and postcard landscapes, but there is another side of reality too: the everyday life of ordinary people, urban outskirts, the underside of society. This underside is still very little explored and rarely conveyed in cinema, and it is precisely this that I want to reveal to the viewer.

How would you describe the current generation of young Kyrgyz directors?

We are a generation of sincere and, in a good sense, naive directors. There is an enormous, pure desire burning in us to make films despite any difficulties and to rediscover for the world an authentic, non-ceremonial Central Asia.

Also read on Novastan: « Kourmanjan Datka » : l’épopée féminine, nationaliste et historique de la reine de l’Alaï

What are the main difficulties independent filmmakers face in Kyrgyzstan today: funding, distribution, education, censorship, access to audiences?

I would say that the main problems are specialised education and an acute lack of infrastructure for film production. Making films in co-production with other countries is especially difficult. We still lack the legal and technical foundations for easy international partnerships.

Do you feel part of a broader Central Asian cinema, or do you primarily see your work in the context of the Kyrgyz film scene?

I think I feel more like part of a broader regional, Central Asian cinema. Our countries have very similar historical backgrounds, common social problems and a mentality that is close in spirit, so we understand each other’s pains and joys very well.

What would you like international audiences to better understand about Kyrgyzstan through your films?

I do not have any specific educational or didactic goal. My task as a director is simpler and, at the same time, more difficult: to tell human stories honestly. If, through these local stories, foreign viewers can empathise with the characters, then the universal language of cinema has worked.

For Novastan readers who would like to discover your work: where can they watch your films? Are The Road, Birdsong, Balyk and Barakholka available online, shown only at festivals, or can they be watched on request?

Unfortunately, the films are not freely available online for now. They are currently in an active period of their life, so legally they can mainly be seen at film festivals.

Are there any upcoming screenings or festivals where viewers in Kyrgyzstan, France, Europe or online will be able to see your work?

No screenings are planned for the very coming months. The main wave of screenings and festival premieres is expected closer to autumn, when the new global film season traditionally begins.

Also read on Novastan: « Centaure » : film poétique et critique sur la société kirghize

If readers discover your work through this interview, which film would you advise them to start with, and why?

I would recommend watching them in strict chronological order, starting with the 2022 work. That way, viewers will be able to see not only the stories of the characters, but also my personal evolution as an author, the development of my directorial language and my cinematic thinking as a whole.

What are you working on now, and would you like to make a feature film in the future?

Right now, I am working on my next short film. At the same time, I am taking a big step forward: I am writing the screenplay for my debut feature film.

Interview by

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief at Novastan-English

Maya Ivanova, Contributor at Novastan

Thank you for reading this article! If you have time, we would appreciate your feedback, either through this anonymous form or by email at editorial@novastan.org. Thank you very much!

The post Through roads, markets and silence: Tolomush Zhanybekov films Kyrgyzstan’s unseen lives appeared first on Novastan English.

With his new film “Goliath,” director Adilkhan Yerzhanov once again takes his audience into the vastness of the Kazakh steppe. The revenge western celebrated its German premiere on 29 April at the 23rd goEast Central and Eastern European Film Festival in Germany.

The film begins with a tribunal. Gangster Poshayev (played by Daniyar Alshinov) and his gang have just robbed the local police station. Now the three policemen and a villager named Karina are standing against the wall. Karina is offered one last cigarette; one of the gangsters reads out the statement she has just made against Poshayev. Poshayev pulls the trigger.

In the next scene, Karina is carried to her grave. Poshayev crouches down next to her widower Arzu (played by Berik Aytzhanov), who is sitting on the ground next to the burial mound. Poshayev explains that he couldn’t do otherwise. He wants to know if Arzu has a problem with him because of this. Arzu replies in the negative, followed by Poshayev giving him money and offering work. It is this combination of carrot and stick that establishes Poshayev’s rule over Karatas.

Kazakh western

Karatas, a fictional village in the Kazakh steppe, has also been the setting for Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s previous films. As in “A Dark, Dark Man”, Yerzhanov tells a story of injustice and powerlessness, with rough and sometimes desolate steppe providing a fitting background.

It was probably also the vastness of the breathtaking landscape that inspired the director to shoot a western. Because that is exactly what “Goliath,” with its hero taking on a gang of criminals on his own, is all about. Scenes in the mine that dominates the village and shootouts on a railway line in the steppe are further reminiscences of the genre.

The limping and stuttering Arzu is an unlikely hero. As villagers suspect he wants to take revenge on Poshayev for the death of his wife, they beat him up and chase him out of Karatas along with his young daughter, whom he looks after on his own after the death of his wife. It is thanks to Poshayev that almost all the villagers have jobs in the local mine – the very rumour that people might be against him is therefore dangerous. But when Arzu’s brother is also murdered by Poshayev’s men, Arzu takes on the quest for revenge.

The power of the strongest

With its magnificent landscape shots, a story of powerlessness in the face of crime tied to state power, and not least because of the Old Testament reference in the title, “Goliath” (a name that is not even mentioned in the film) has some parallels to Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s masterpiece “Leviathan”. So old wine in new bottles?

Not at all. Because with “Goliath”, Yerzhanov delivers a successful parable of power. While Danila Bagrov, the main character in Aleksei Balabanov’s epic gangster film “Brat” (Brother), justifies his actions by saying that “power lies in the truth”, Poshayev’s views are free of such morality and much less philosophical. Aware of his own crudeness, he explains to Arzu, pointing to his Kalashnikov: “This is power.”

However, Yerzhanov is not satisfied with such a flat answer. Almost as if to emphasise the importance of the question of power, he inserts appropriate quotes from Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli’s “The Prince” at various points in the film. The fact that Poshayev is also a “Machiavellian”, without presumably ever having read the Italian philosopher, is shown by another quote from “The Prince”. In the key scene of the film, in which Poshayev explains the principle of power to Arzu, he says that one has to be a lion and a fox at the same time: Because the lion cannot smell snares, and the fox gets no respect.

In the end, it is Poshayev himself who does not pay enough attention. He only realises the double game of the ostracised fox Arzu when it is too late. “Those that have been best able to imitate the fox have succeeded best,” Machiavelli concludes his comparison.

A film worth seeing

With “Goliath,” Adilkhan Yerzhanov has once again produced the best art-house cinema, which is well received by European audiences but hardly attracts any attention in Kazakhstan itself. Filmmaker Aida Adilbek reported during a symposium at the goEast film festival that “Goliath” was only screened in Almaty – and only for five days.

Read more on Novastan: “Alaqan”: Aida Adilbek’s decolonial documentary cinema

Nevertheless, the director has remained true to himself for years and delivers what his fans expect most. Yerzhanov knows how to stage a sad, socially critical story embedded in a breathtaking landscape of the steppe, using great camera angles and ingenious play of light and darkness. The film also impresses with its details and allusions, which are unfortunately not always immediately obvious. Even if “Goliath” is not the best story ever told by Yerzhanov, it is certainly a film worth seeing.

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The post “Goliath” – a parable of power appeared first on Novastan English.

CENTRAL ASIAN CINEMA. The film The Wounded Angel (2016) follows four adolescent boys in a rural village in mid-1990s Kazakhstan, each trying to come to terms with the lack of opportunities and injustices around them, leading to patterns of self-destructive behaviour.

“Central Asian Cinema” is a series of collaborative articles written by different members of the Novastan team to share their favourite cinematographic moments about Central Asia. Each article describes a film produced or shot in Central Asia which is available to watch online.

The Wounded Angel (2016) is a sparse, quiet film set in Kazakhstan in the years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when the country was spiralling into a deep economic crisis. This is the setting in which director Emir Baigazin weaves this slow-burn narrative about young men who are victims of the wider issues dominating their upbringing.

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The film is beautifully shot, making heavy use of lingering shots in darkened, empty rooms or the sepia-toned vastness of the Kazakh Steppe. The undeniably attractive visual aspect of The Wounded Angel does not overshadow the strange plot turns, drawn out through deliberately limited dialogue, and the emotional scenes contrasted to impressively stoic reactions.

The strength of Baigazin’s piece is what it illustrates about Kazakhstan’s post-Soviet identity. Through the four young protagonists, we see clearly the limitations of their home life, and can share their deep-seated desire to break free of the monotonous hopelessness of their village. Each story has overlap on this theme, but brings about a new dimension of Kazakhstani culture following the collapse of the USSR, including the exploration of petty crimes, the stigma of being an ex-prisoner, the practice of making money from selling scrap metal, and the pressures of obtaining education. Each plot carefully crafts the generational and cyclical nature of the poor choices made, often in haste or as a cry for help.

Read more: Igla: plunge into the underworld of Kazakhstan’s perestroika with the legendary Viktor Tsoi

Each vignette is thought-provoking in its own way, providing loose moral lessons with no fixed resolution for the protagonists. Through its use of close-ups and extended scenes, The Wounded Angel feels especially realistic, acting as a glimpse into a place which seems reflective of the real conditions of any rural setting in Central Asia at this time. Ultimately it is a film about graft, hardship and the often harsh reality of confronting one’s own dreams. Though difficult to watch at times and slow to develop, even grinding to an almost complete stop at times, The Wounded Angel is a truly profound addition to Kazakhstani cinema, and showcases human tragedy at this point of historical stagnation.

The Wounded Angel is available on MUBI with English subtitles.

Tommy Hodgson
Novastan.org

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The post The Wounded Angel: a dramatic and profound portrait of 1990s rural Kazakhstan appeared first on Novastan English.

CENTRAL ASIAN CINEMA. The rock-n-roll film Igla (The Needle in English) is a denunciation of the drug problem that plagued Soviet Central Asia in the late 1980s. But above all, it’s worth seeing for Soviet rock legend Viktor Tsoi, who dominates the film in the lead role, punctuating it with his music and his revolutionary spirit. It’s one of the most influential films of its time.

“Central Asian Cinema” is a series of collaborative articles written by different members of the Novastan team to share their favourite cinematographic moments about Central Asia. Each article describes a film produced or shot in Central Asia, which is available to watch online.

Igla (1988) is a cult classic in the former Soviet Union, as much for its soundtrack and star – the icon Viktor Tsoi, singer and front man of the group Kino – as for the film itself. Although strange at times, the feature film is an accurate representation of the intense artistic movements of the late 1980s in which Viktor Tsoi and his peers played an important role. The film mainly takes place in the city of Almaty (the then-capital of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic), with some scenes shot on the shores of the Aral Sea, where boats already lay abandoned in the desert sand as a result of the ecological crisis that dried up the sea.

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The film centers around the problem of drug addiction which, at the time of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, wreaked havoc throughout the USSR. The problem was particularly serious in Central Asia, which was at the front line of both the war and of Afghan opium production. Igla is a film that bears witness to the social and political questions of the time. It’s not just a Soviet cult classic but a part of Central Asian cultural and artistic history.

The film is available on YouTube in Russian with English subtitles.

Translated from French by Alice Coveney

Edited by Clare Hodgson

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The post Igla: plunge into the underworld of Kazakhstan’s perestroika with the legendary Viktor Tsoi appeared first on Novastan English.

George Itzhak’s award-winning short documentary “Waiting for the Sea” connects insights into Uzbekistan electronic music scene and its traditional music with the drying up of the Aral Sea. Novastan spoke with him about the challenges of making the film, the similarities between techno and folk music, and the film’s reception in Central Asia and beyond.

An electronic music festival in the middle of Aralkum desert, over a thousand kilometres away from the capital Tashkent? That’s the idea behind Stihia, which held its first edition in September 2018 in Moynaq, a small town in the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan, in western Uzbekistan. This town is best known for its tragic destiny: once located at the southern shore of the Aral Sea and famous for its fish industry, the town is now dozens of kilometres away from the rapidly receding shorelines of the Aral Sea. 

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Director George Itzhak, 28, who was born in Tashkent but grew up and lives in New York City, was fascinated by the idea of the festival, by the emerging electronic music scene in Tashkent and the connections of techno music and traditional Uzbek folk music. In August 2019, he travelled to Uzbekistan for the second edition of Stihia, and to dive into Uzbek culture and the capital’s young electronic music scene.

The result is “Waiting for the Sea”, a documentary representing his personal perspective as an Uzbek who has never lived in Uzbekistan and his search for the connections between ancient tradition and futuristic movement. At the same time, it breaks away from the stereotypes and clichés often used when presenting Uzbekistan, Karakalpakstan and the region of the Aral Sea.

Waiting for the Sea from George Itzhak on Vimeo.

Novastan: You were born in Uzbekistan but grew up in New York City. What made you want to return to Uzbekistan to make a documentary?

George Itzhak: I was born in Tashkent, but when I was about a year and a half old, my entire family left. My family background is that we’re Bukharan Jews, so we’re part of the Jewish minority in Uzbekistan. The Bukharan Jews started to leave Uzbekistan in the 1980s, first slowly, and then much faster after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as they were concerned about a possible religious backlash after the independence of Uzbekistan. America and Israel opened the doors for us, so pretty much all of us left by the mid-nineties. Many of them settled in New York – there are about 50.000 to 60.000 Bukharan Jews in New York City. So, we have a very big diaspora community there. 

I grew up in New York City speaking Russian at home, observing all the traditions, hearing about Uzbekistan from my grandparents, but we never went there – it just never came up. I travelled to Russia a few times, but I never made it to Central Asia. As I got older, I got married, I had a child, and suddenly something clicked in me, that I wanted to go back before starting this new part of my life. Then I found the story of Stihia and the young electronic music scene in Uzbekistan, which was fascinating to me, and I saw a really good opportunity there. 

How did you hear about Stihia?

It all started with one image that someone on my Facebook shared: It was a poster of Stihia, and it was the image of a traditional Karakalpak woman in traditional clothing. But it was very stylized, in an electronic music poster kind of way. It was almost like a magical picture: it merged the traditional culture and the way I had been used to seeing Uzbekistan with this very young, futuristic aesthetic. The combination of those two really made an impression on me, I clicked on it and kept diving into this topic and stumbled about all these stories of electronic music in Uzbekistan and Stihia, which had taken place last year. 

So, I discovered Stihia in the preparations of the second year of the festival. I totally missed the first year! But from then on, I was caught, and I started making calls, got in touch with the festival founders, formulating what this film project could be. I called my co-producer, Neha Hirve, with whom I had studied in New York, and told her: “Look, I have this crazy idea, not a lot of money, but I can promise you that it’ll be an adventure.“ And she was on board right away. We just started sharing images, sharing and finding references in the world of cinema about Central Asia. It’s a documentary, but I didn’t want it to feel like a reportage. I had seen some stories on Stihia already, but I wanted it to be something different. I wanted to be immersed and to show my own experience.

So, what followed were about three to four months of pre-production, phone calls, interviews with the interview partners shown in the film etc. I was really immersing myself in the visual world of Uzbekistan, checking out photographers from Uzbekistan – that’s how I discovered Novastan also. My main goal before going there was to try to understand the visual language of Uzbekistan. That was the key. I think the view on Uzbekistan from the West and foreigners is very orientalist. It’s all about women dancing, making Lepyoshka in the oven etc. It almost feels like looking at animals in the zoo sometimes. I feel like I have a personal responsibility here. I am from there, but I’m not really from there. I have a foot in both worlds, and I knew I couldn’t just do a basic, superficial job of this. 

How did you experience the electronic music scene in Uzbekistan and especially in Tashkent? 

There are two parts of the story: Stihia and Moynaq on the one hand, and then there was so much happening in Tashkent. My goal was to join those two straits together. I had never thought about Uzbekistan in the context of electronic music. I think that’s why the images I found online inspired me so much. I think it partly revealed my own ignorance: growing up in New York, even though I’m from Uzbekistan, everything I knew about this city and this place, I knew it through the lens of my grandparents. So, I had this kind of archaic, old view – a view stuck in the past. And when I was in that basement bar in Tashkent, it was like I was thrown into the future. It actually felt very close to New York. I think that’s simply global culture. People there had t-shirts that said “Brooklyn” on them. 

I could see that the walls that had once existed, in my grandparents‘ generation, were no longer there. I was really surprised to discover how diverse the city is. It’s a very multicultural place. I think people in Tashkent have always been cosmopolitan, but you can’t deny that there were boundaries between different ethnicities, between Uzbek Jews and Russians etc., there were some walls there. But being there and being among this group of young people, the generation coming up now, really showed me that a lot of the old boundaries that existed before, in my parents’ and grandparents’ time, were gone. 

Do you have any references that inspired you in your idea of making “Waiting for the Sea”?

I have one specific reference that was very essential when formulating this concept: it’s one French film maker of Roma origin, Tony Gatlif. His work is so influenced by folk music, and I was trying to understand how to cinematically depict music, in a way that had storytelling in mind, a way that was emotionally driven. I discovered his work and he did a film called “Latcho Drom”. It’s a story about the Roma people, told exclusively through folk music. It’s technically a documentary, but it’s also treated like a fiction film. He’s making a blend of those two formats through folk music. I guess I saw a potential there to apply that to Uzbekistan. 

In your documentary you explore the connection between traditional folk music and electronic music. What kind of a connection do you see between the two? 

This was actually the main concept I wanted to explore. The way I felt listening to Uzbek, Karakalpak, Bukharan folk music was the same way I felt when listening to electronic music. I think they’re so similar. When you put them in a dialogue together, they create this perfect lens through which you can look at Uzbekistan, its past and its future. There is a great quote by Jeff Mills, a famous American DJ, that came up during my interview with one of the festival founders: “Techno music wasn’t designed to be dance music, it was designed to be a futurist statement.” So you have these two forces: a force of the past about preserving heritage, about honouring what came before you. And you have this other force, on the other side, looking into the future, creating something new. And I really wanted to create a conversation between these two. And frankly, it just happened naturally. It just happened in Karakalpakistan, I didn’t have to force it even. 

I also think the aesthetic of Stihia and all electronic festivals is very shamanic: you have the DJ in the centre, on a stage, he’s creating this mixture of sounds and has these circles of dancers spiralling around him, reaching an extraordinary level of ecstasy. It’s very ancient in its presentation. Electronic music and ancient folk music, they both sort of speak to God. I know it sounds crazy, but the electronic music artists I talked to, talked about Stihia being their way of reaching out to the god of the Aral, to call for the rain. They themselves called it a shamanic act. And if you look at the history of folk music, it has that same root. There is a connection to something in another world. 

In the documentary, you also show that not only young people from all over the world, from Central Asia, India and Russia joined the festival, but also locals from Moynaq, elderly people and children. How would you describe the atmosphere at the festival? 

I think it’s something that happened unexpectedly. The festival organisers told me that they weren’t sure how the locals would react to the festival. I think you can’t underestimate how far and remote Moynaq is. If you consider Uzbekistan as being isolated, think about how isolated Moynaq is. Just to get there, you have to fly to Nukus and even from Nukus, which is connected to Tashkent, you have to drive three or four hours on terrible desert roads just to get to Moynaq. It’s a very remote place. In many cases, for the first time Stihia was held, many of these locals never heard this kind of music. It must have been revolutionary for them. And I think you can praise Stihia for this and the fact that they’re very inclusive. They didn’t try to create any walls. The only regulations there were came from the officials, from the police. I saw a lot of great moments of interaction there. For example, there was one Australian couple there, teaching these young Karakalpak kids how to dance. That was a beautiful moment. The film makes this point that music like this is universal. It’s not about language. It’s just about feeling and this energy that dancing can create. 

Do you feel Moynaq changed because of the festival?

On a physical level, it is changing: there’s a lot of construction happening and a lot of locals I’ve talked to kept talking about the investment in construction and building housing, new stores, new roads. You can totally see that the government is trying to make Moynaq more of a destination right now. But more importantly, there’s a spiritual change: I talked to this one young girl who lived there, and she was so excited about all these people being there and this amazing atmosphere. I think it showed people who live there that they matter in this country. They deserve attention and they’re getting it now.

Suddenly, there are people from all over the world coming to their place, and it’s not just about the tragedy of the Aral Sea anymore. Whenever people came to this place, it was all about how bad this place is. Right now, there’s a positive reason to be there. It changes so much to have a positive energy, when people are talking about this place and people come there with the intention of having a good time and are not firstly talking about health issues and economic difficulties and tragedy and ecological disaster. There’s a change there that happens. 

Do you think an event like Stihia can have an impact on the way people perceive or deal with the drying up of the Aral Sea?

It’s hard to talk about direct impacts. The film wasn’t about the ecological tragedy of the Aral Sea. So many documentaries talk about that already. This festival is more of a statement to the world, it’s more about creating a cluster of energy about this place that might lead to other things. I kept thinking about this understanding of the god of the sea. Whether they believe in it or not I don’t know, but there’s this phrase getting thrown around: “Let’s pray for rain!”, “Let’s pray to the god of the Aral!”, and I really wanted to make this a big thing on the film. This festival was basically a semi-religious act and made this big statement. I’m still processing everything I’ve seen there, but to me it’s a mixture of a shamanic act, a religious act and an act of pure, youthful punk energy. 

People might criticise that your documentary shows an idealistic view on Uzbekistan. What would you oppose to this kind of critique?

It really does show an idealistic view on Uzbekistan. That’s probably because I have this very nostalgic view myself. That’s for example why I added this Soviet film from the 1980s about the capital. It’s extremely idealized. It’s all about everyone being together and this beautiful, sunny place to live. And even with things like colour, I gave the Tashkent scene a very golden, nostalgic tone – because that’s how I experienced it. Even with Moynaq: we didn’t want to reinforce the usual picture of it as a very dusty, dead place. So, in the colour corrections, we decided to make the colours look more saturated. We used this exaggerated green, for example. We didn’t want it to seem dead. 

So of course, it’s subjective. I really put my perspective in there. What I noticed from a lot of local or native filmmakers, is that they have another perspective, they face many challenges. But I don’t, and I can’t pretend that I do. So, this film is very much the perspective of an Uzbekistan native who has never lived there. I can’t pretend to be something else. When I edited the film, I often got advice like, you should investigate this aspect and that aspect. I could also have gotten into all the other aspects of Moynaq, the dryness, the sickness of the people there etc., but that would have been another film.   

This year’s edition of the festival has been postponed to next year – are you still willing to follow up on Stihia and the electronic music scene in Uzbekistan in the future?

What I am interested in is going back. Whether I’ll be interested in electronic music, I can’t say. But I think there’re so many more stories that I could dive into there and I’m happy that the film is getting attention in the country itself – that has been great so far. So, I feel like I get a lot of trust from people in Uzbekistan, so I can go back and make more.

There’s a lot I want to explore I think, and music is definitely going to be a part of my work, because it inspires me so much. I also think I want to go down this folk music path a bit more and dig deeper in it. I think the presence of folk music in Uzbekistan is so relevant and I think there’s a lot to explore there. In general, I am looking forward to working on more documentary projects – but also on fiction. I’d love to get more into fiction film making and get to know the local fictional film industry – there are some great artists from Uzbekistan today, like Saodat Ismailova. 

You mentioned that people in Uzbekistan appreciate your work – did you get a chance to screen it there?

We haven’t had a proper screening, partly because of coronavirus. But I’ve been sending it around and I can track through the link I send people where the link is opened. And clearly people in the country are sharing it among each other because I’m getting so many views in Uzbekistan. I sent it to, like, 20 people in Uzbekistan, but it has close to a thousand views in the country, and that’s great! I think it’s probably because someone is finally making a documentary that is not focussing on the negative aspects or on ancient history only. I think the film also makes their culture experiential in other parts of the worlds: when your experience is put into a film that can be seen around the world, it’s making your experience real. I think that’s very powerful. 

Your film received the “Best documentary” award at the Moscow Shorts International Film Festival and was awarded best documentary and best cinematography at Long Story Shorts International Film Festival. How does this reward feel?

I didn’t expect any of this – I think as a filmmaker you really don’t want to put any expectations on future success. My only expectation was to make something I could show and be proud of. I am hoping for more, to be able to show it to a broader audience. I’m hoping to show it in New York as soon as I can. I want to take the film to contemporary art spaces, to galleries and to more festivals, as soon as gatherings can happen again without fear. Many of the festivals that were supposed to happen this spring will happen next spring only. I really want to show the film in the UK, in Germany, in Berlin. I want to show the film where there is a big community of creative people and filmmakers, and I want to open this window to Central Asia. 

Do you have any plans for screenings in Uzbekistan or Central Asia?

I had planned to show the movie in a festival in Kazakhstan, where the film industry is more developed than in Uzbekistan. But I clearly want to focus on organising something in Uzbekistan. I think that’s super important. But I want to make sure that not just the young people that go to electronic music parties are there, I want to have a broader audience. I think I’ll be working with the festival organisers and organise something. And hopefully at the next Stihia, they’ll be able to screen the film as well.

Interview by Annkatrin Müller
Novastan writer

The post Finding links between electronic and folk music in “Waiting for the Sea” appeared first on Novastan English.