The Legend of Tomiris

The Legend of Tomiris 2019

6.90

This is the story of the life of the great queen of the steppe - legendary Tomiris. She is destined to become a skillful warrior, survive the loss of close people and unite the Scythian/Saka tribes under her authority.

2019

Paradise

Paradise 1995

5.60

Sergey Dvortsevoy makes his international debut with this astonishingly intimate portrait of a nomadic family on the Kazakh plains. Several scenes in this slow, elegant film betray a certain dry humor -- a child devouring the last of a bowl of yogurt and then crying; a cow getting its head stuck in a pail; and a woman singing to herself, accompanied by her snoring husband. Other scenes capture the nomads' hardscrabble lives -- drunken herdsmen in the grips of existential despair, growling dogs, and a camel enduring a rather grim septum piercing. By the end of the film, the family pulls up stakes and herds its sundry four-legged beasts -- camels, cattle, goats, dogs, and horses -- to a more fertile plain. This film was screened at the 1999 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival.

1995

The Road to Mother

The Road to Mother 2016

6.60

When the Soviets impose new ways of collective farming and permanent settlements on a region of nomadic dwellers, young Ilyas is separated from his mother, Mariam. Through decades of war, mother and son persevere in their efforts to be reunited.

2016

Corn Island

Corn Island 2014

7.30

The Inguri River forms a natural border dividing Georgia from Abkhazia. One of the spring floods has created a little island in the middle of the river, as if made for the cultivation of corn. At least, this is the belief of an old peasant, whose sunburned face resembles the landscape he has trodden for dozens of years.

2014

Nomad: The Warrior

Nomad: The Warrior 2005

5.10

The Nomad is a historical epic set in 18th-century Kazakhstan. The film is a fictionalised account of the youth and coming-of-age of Ablai Khan, as he grows and fights to defend the fortress at Hazrat-e Turkestan from Dzungar invaders.

2005

Myn Bala: Warriors of the Steppe

Myn Bala: Warriors of the Steppe 2012

7.10

A universal story about the freedom of the human spirit and the struggle against slavery and despotism, about love, loss and betrayal. It is seen through the eyes of simple Kazakh kids and teenagers.

2012

Kazakh Khanate: The Golden Throne

Kazakh Khanate: The Golden Throne 2019

5.20

XV century. In the vast expanses of Eurasia, the descendants of Genghis Khan create their own state. The promised land of Kazakh Khanate is resisting its enemies..

2019

Schizo

Schizo 2004

5.14

Fifteen year old Mustafa has a nickname Schizo. He is hired by his mother’s boyfriend to find fighters for illegal fistfights. His life is changed forever when a young man mortally beaten in one of the fights asks Schizo to deliver his prize money to his girlfriend and young son. Schizo takes the money to the woman as promised and falls in love with her. Now he knows for whom he has to make money, no matter what the cost. In fistfights there are no rules… until blood is spilled!

2004

I Won't Come Back

I Won't Come Back 2014

5.85

Anya, a young academic raised in an orphanage, is on the cusp of success when she’s accused of drug possession. While in limbo hiding from the police, she hits the road with Kristina, another orphan several years Anya’s junior, in search of her possibly mythical grandmother.

2014

Kazakh Khanate: Diamond Sword

Kazakh Khanate: Diamond Sword 2017

4.80

Set in the 15th century, the story follows the formation of the Kazakh state after the death of Genghis Khan and the usurpation of power by one of Khan's descendants, leading the sultans Kerei and Janibek to resort to some nomadic tribes to remove the usurper, hoping for a better life and freedom.

2017

Hunting the Phantom

Hunting the Phantom 2014

3.46

The action of this story begins in the near future. The great device codenamed as the “Phantom” is invented by the Global Security Corporation in order to eliminate the crime and to establish a secure global community. But, it is not how it really is. The reverse side of the “Phantom” is to establish an absolute control over people’s minds. The Corporation aims to change the course of the history, by gaining the community of obedient “puppets”, who would never realize that their minds are being controlled. Step by step, the “Phantom” fractures people’s lives, but nobody suspects anything, until it destroys the lives of in-love couple- Timur and Keira. She is convicted of murder, and he needs to break the law to save her. An American criminal hacker named Zach helps Timur to find the truth, and to uncover the Corporation’s conspiracy.

2014

The Irony of Love

The Irony of Love 2010

4.61

An affair which starts as a bet between a three girls suddenly become a big love story...

2010

Paris Song

Paris Song 2018

5.50

Based on a true story, a small-town Kazakh singer, Amre Kashaubayev, journeys to Paris to compete in an international singing competition at the 1925 Paris Expo. He meets American songwriter George Gershwin forming a beautiful and unlikely friendship. While Amre’s talent for singing opens up an exciting new world outside Kazakhstan, he is forced to choose between following his singing career and remaining loyal to his home country.

2018

Waiting for the Sea

Waiting for the Sea 2012

5.86

Sailor Marat carries a great burden. His whole village condemns him since his wife and many fishermen were washed off his boat in a mysterious sea storm. Ever since then the sea has vanished. One day, Marat returns to his village, obsessed by the idea of making the sea return and so the dead. He begins rebuilding his shipwreck in the middle of the desert, dragging it towards the endless horizon. Only his last close friend Balthasar, and Tamara, the sister of Marat's deceased wife, believe in him. Tamara, deeply in love with Marat, who repulses her, knows from a fortune teller that maybe not her dream but his might come true. One morning Marat wakes up by the sound of water - the sea has returned, ready to take what belongs to her...

2012

Oliara

Oliara 2023

1

The 30s of the last century. Hungarian Istvan Magyar, a member of the International Communist International, is sentenced to death by firing squad. However, he is being sent from Moscow to the Kazakh steppe to atone for his "political guilt." He gets into the operational detachment of the OGPU of Karabai, which is engaged in the search and confiscation of Kulak cattle. The photographer of the Red Army detachment, Istvan Magyar, on a campaign across the winter steppe for the cattle of the poor, changes his views on the revolution. From the position of a European and a humanist, Istvan is stunned by the Holodomor and the brutality of the OGPU fighters. A Hungarian communist rebels and finds like-minded locals in Kubabas village. Together they are trying to fight the red tyranny.

2023

Harmony Lessons

Harmony Lessons 2013

7.00

During a medical examination, 13-year-old Aslan is humiliated in front of a load of his fellow pupils. The incident unleashes his latent personality disorder. Plagued by self-doubt, he strives for cleanliness and perfection and is obsessed with trying to control everything around him. His compulsion draws Aslan, who lives with his grandmother in a village in Kazakhstan, into increasingly difficult situations. He abhors the way most of his fellow pupils are held in the sway of a criminal scheme, in which Bolat, one of Aslan’s tormentors, is also involved. Bolat blackmails the younger children into paying him protection money; he has nothing but contempt for ostracised Aslan.

2013

The Gift to Stalin

The Gift to Stalin 2008

5.50

A Jewish child deported to Kazakhstan is saved and adopted by Kasym, an old Kazakh railway-man. Kasym gives him a Kazakh name, Sabyr, that in Kazakh language means humble. The child grows up in the small Kazakh village along with other deportees Vera, a traitor's wife, and Ezhik a Polish doctor. The Soviet militia harasses the poor peasants and Vera suffered the harassment of a bully cop: Bulgabi. Finally Vera accepts the marriage proposal of Ezhik but the jealous Bulgabi tries to prevent the marriage. The result is a fight in which Ezhik shoots himself accidentally. The old Kasym decides that Sabyr is now old enough to go to seek his real parents. At the end Sabyr, now an adult, decides to return to the village, but the village no longer exists because it was destroyed by a Soviet nuclear test.

2008

Tale of a Pink Hare

Tale of a Pink Hare 2010

6.90

Provincial guy Yerlan is a 3rd—year student of one of the Almaty universities. He came to the city hoping to succeed in the future. However, the environment of the golden youth, where he got, turned out to be difficult. It has its own laws, its own rules, and in order to preserve its moral principles, many things will have to be relived and experienced.

2010

Test

Test 2014

6.40

Set in 1949 on a remote farm near a nuclear testing site, Dina is living a quiet, unremarkable life with her father until two suitors enter her life.

2014

Yellow Cat

Yellow Cat 2020

6.00

Ex-con Kermek and his beloved Eva want to leave their crime-infested lives on the Kazakh steppes behind. He has a dream: building a movie theater in the mountains. Will Kermek's love of Alain Delon be strong enough to keep them out of the violent clutches of the mafia?

2020