Enter the wild world of Adilkhan Yerzhanov with this double feature from Kazakhstan’s prolific poet of the steppe.

One of the most distinctive voices in Central Asian film, Yerzhanov has released 23 films in the past 23 years, creating a self-contained cinematic universe populated by dreamers, criminals, and cinephiles. His oddball films reimagine gangster flicks, westerns, and romantic comedies in the outskirts of post-Soviet Kazakhstan, blending the sweeping with the minimal, the naive with the cynical, the sincere with the satirical. Yerzhanov is at his lyrical best in The Gentle Indifference of the World (2018), a tender tale of innocence corrupted that sees childhood friends travel from the country to the city in search of their fortune. Meanwhile, Yellow Cat (2020) reimagines Bonnie and Clyde as an odyssey to the heart of Central Asian absurdity, paying homage to Yerzhanov’s beloved Hollywood and French New Wave with the tale of a movie-obsessed ex-con and his sultry female companion on the run from the mob.