Directed by Adilkhan Yerzhanov • 2018 • Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan’s king of the offbeat and the absurd, Adilkhan Yerzhanov is at his lyrical best in this tale of innocence corrupted. When her father commits suicide, country girl Saltanat (Dinara Baktybayeva) is forced to travel to the city in search...

Directed by Rachid Nougmanov • 1988 • USSR/Kazakhstan

Part Pulp Fiction, part Betty Blue, Rachid Nougmanov’s cult punk film portrays the attempt of an enigmatic drifter (Soviet rock legend Viktor Tsoi) to free his ex-girlfriend from the clutches of a morphine-peddling surgeon. Contrasting the sh...

Directed by Aktan Abdykalykov • 1998 • Kyrgyzstan

This award-winning film proved to be a catalyst for Kyrgyz cinema’s post-Soviet development. The second part of an autobiographical series based on director Aktan Abdykalykov’s own life, Beshkempir tells a tale of tumultuous adolescence. The pro...

Directed by Ali Khamraev • 1985 • USSR/Uzbekistan

This hypnotic, autobiographical film is dedicated to the memory of the director’s father – actor and director Ergash Khamraev, one of the founders of Uzbek cinema. Honouring the request of his sick mother, young Tashkent native Kim sets off in se...

Directed by Adilkhan Yerzhanov • 2020 • Kazakhstan

A movie-obsessed ex-con and his sultry female companion are lovers on the lam in Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s droll and touching crime caper. Kermek (Azamat Nigmanov) returns from the joint to his native Kazakh village with a dream: to build a cinema on...

Directed by Michael Borodin • 2022 • Russia

Based on shocking real-life events, Michael Borodin’s feature debut is a harrowing account of the hidden world of modern slavery. Mukhabat (Zukhara Sanzysbay) is one of a group of Uzbek migrants being held against their will in the Moscow grocery store...

Directed by Janyl Jusupjan • 2023 • Kyrgyzstan

Buzkashi is a traditional sport of Central Asia in which teams of horsemen battle to carry a goat carcass across a goal line. In this strictly gendered world, only men can play the game – but there are windows of opportunity for enterprising women. ...

Directed by Aleksei German • 1976 • USSR/Russia

One of the few “cinéma-vérité” gems centred around Second World War, Aleksei German’s sophomore film is a melancholic yet deft investigation into the true wages of war. Disillusioned correspondent Lopatin is granted twenty days of leave from the St...

Directed by Sergei Dvortsevoy • 2008 • Kazakhstan

Sergei Dvortsevoy’s Cannes-awarded fiction feature debut is part ethnography, part romantic comedy, and part beginners’ guide to sheep-rearing. Recently demobbed from the Russian Navy, idealistic young Asa returns to his family home on Kazakhstan...