Festivals: call for entries

Kyrgyz Serial: The contest of scripts (2024_kg)
 
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Call for entries: The VI Film Forum Of Women Film Directors Of Kyrgyzstan

 

Deadline: 01.03.2024

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XI Forum of the young cinema Umut-2024

 

Dates & place: 28.03-01.04.24, 2024, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Organizer: Cinema Department with support: Interstate humanitarian cooperation fund
Participants: Ex-Soviet countries
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Monday, 15 April 2013 00:00

New reviews about Kyrgyz films at Kinokultura: there are two film reviews written by Gulbara Tolomushova: A Hidden Life (about The Passion) & The Hope of the Last Teacher (about The Seagull) & also one written by Elizabeth Papazian about Epmty Home.

 

1. Fragment from A Hidden Life:

 

Temir Birnazarov has completed work on his new film, The Passion. It is the story of people who have no intention to expose their lives. Therefore, the action largely takes place in twilight. The interiors are stripped of natural light: the windows are covered with heavy curtains. The majority of the film consists of long shots, while wide-angle shots are missing entirely. All the mise-en-scenes are static, and the individual takes tend to be long.

 

The heroes are in the grip of a set of rules. They lead a secret life, hidden from extraneous eyes, yet the audience is let into this life: we, the spectators, are expert observers of this life. The director seems to give to us the opportunity (or the right) to observe the protagonists by offering an unusual format of rendering the material. He believes that the expert-viewers are capable of joining fragments and nuances in their minds, and reach the right conclusion.

 

Please open: Temir Birnazarov: The Passion (2013) reviewed by Gulbara Tolomushova © 2013

 

 

2. Fragment from The Hope of the Last Teacher:

 

“Have you read Evening Bishkek?”—the zealous defender of the Russian language and retired literature teacher Talip does not give the director a school on Lake Issyk-Kul a break even to go to the toilet. He wants to make the head-teacher aware that the pain of losing the subject in the curriculum is not only his, Talip’s; the popular newspaper of the capital also voices its distress: “Already 70 per cent of the population speak no Russian,” and Talip adds: “and next year it’ll be 100 per cent.” (Shakir 2013)

 

The Muscovite Elizaveta Stishova, a graduate from the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors, has made a short film with an original idea, accomplished in form, and ideally performed: The Seagull. It deals with the current status of Russian in Kyrgyzstan.

 

Please open: Elizaveta Stishova: The Seagull (Chaika, 2013) reviewed by Gulbara Tolomushova © 2013 

 

Translated by Birgit Beumers

 

3. Fragment from the review written by Elizabeth Papazian about Empty Home:

 

Nurbek Egen’s previous success on the international festival circuit appears to be linked to his interest in the clash between modernity and tradition, between metropole and a somewhat idealized village life—a clash that reveals the value in both, and never appears hopeless. Whether imagined or purely invented (as Gulbara Tolomusheva argued in her review of his debut feature, The Wedding Chest/Sunduk predkov, 2006) and his student short film, Sanzhyra, 2000), Egen’s evocation of Kyrgyz tradition creates a world of myth that underlies a sometimes violent everyday village life. In The Wedding Chest, this mythical world manifests itself both in the nostalgic and troubling dreams of the émigré Aidar, who returns to his village, and as the object of longing of his Parisian fiancée Isabelle, who is simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by traditional values such as the ideal masculinity of the djigit and the close-knit community of women embodied in the wedding chest of the title.  

 

Please open: Nurbek Egen: The Empty Home (Pustoi dom, 2012) reviewed by Elizabeth Papazian © 2013