IDFA - 2025: "Long Way To The Pasture" from Kyrgyzstan!

IDFA: International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Netherlands

Dates: 13-23 November 2025

"Long Way To The Pasture" will be shown at IDFA's "Best of Fests" program

Director of "Long Way To The Pasture" is Ilgiz-Sherniiaz Tursunbek uulu from Kyrgyzstan

Best of Fests program IDFA:

Prize-winners, public favorites, and the year’s most eye-catching titles from the international festival circuit. The selection uses vastly diverse styles and genres to take us to the world’s most pressing topics.

"Long Way To The Pasture"

Kyrgyzstan, 2025, 23 min., color, DCP, Spoken languages: Kyrgyz

Director: Ilgiz-Sherniiaz Tursunbek uulu

Production: Chubak Kanymet uulu for Aitysh Film

Co-production: Meder Suyundukov for Alcha Group

Cinematography: Karash Zhanyshov

Editing: Adilet Baktybekov

Sound Design: Kalybek Sherniyazov

Screenplay: Ilgiz-Sherniiaz Tursunbek uulu

Screening copy: Aytysh Film

Synopsis:

In the spring, the communal livestock of a Kyrgyz village is moved to the summer pastures in the mountains, a journey fraught with challenges. Occasionally, the camera lingers on a limping dog, a plaintively bleating, rain-soaked lamb, or a boy helping out by distributing raincoats to the more seasoned men. Some animals refuse to cross the swirling river, while others make it across with ease. Ultimately, it’s not about the individual but about the group.

The herd and the herders endure the same hardships, seeming to be at one with the breathtakingly beautiful, inhospitable landscape. There is only the here and now, both for the protagonists (humans, animals, and nature) and for the viewer. At the same time, the film feels timeless: the journey has been made again and again, for centuries.

This highly cinematic account of an annual episode in the semi-nomadic existence of a shepherd family won two awards at its world premiere at the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.