Synopsis. A small village is situated on the picturesque shore of Lake Issyk-Kul. Nazik, a 7 year old girl, lives there with her mother Rumiya, a young and bold beauty. Rumiya works at a trout farm. After the collapse of the Soviet empire everyone struggles to survive in this remote mountainous region, where the “world financial crisis” means little to the locals. Only Nazik continues to live in her own make-believe world of fairy-tale, which is reflected in her drawings.

 

National premiere: 30.08.2012, Bishkek

Main competition of the 21st Film Festival Kinoshock, Anapa, Russia, 15-23.09.2012

 

 

In her imaginary world, Aiday sees herself as the Princess Nazik out of a folk fairy tale. A visiting painter Emil says that he is the Rolling Stone. The image of Aiday’s mother – Rumia, both on drawings and paintings of Emil, and in the imagination of her daughter is incarnated by a gull. These graceful lake birds were always respected by people. But the Gull of Emil is not able fly up. Again and again he is trying to depict the flight of a bird, but unsuccessfully.

 

The Gull-Rumia in her delicate lilac mini-dress, with her flowing hair, slowly comes up to the house of her neighbours, where the painter is renting a room. She stops. She leans against the wall. There’s a face of the actress in a close-up shot. A young woman of unearthly beauty, she knows the price of the minutes of short happiness, because she had suffered a thousand of bitter and agonizing hours. The music theme of the beautiful Gull – is an attempt to foresee what will happen now, when he is back. The voice of Emil is on the background, as he speaks about his recent stay in Paris: “I worked, until there came the crisis. The contract was cancelled.” The word “crisis” makes her come out of her stupor.

 

The mother asks her daughter not to visit their neighbours. Rumia is obviously disturbed, it’s one of her days, a day, on which nothing goes right.

 

In the shot there is an old record player. A record starts to spin. A flock of birds flies up to the sky noisily. And as for Aiday this is a reason to get to know the painter closer. The girl wants to find out who he is, and what he came here for. A song that sounds, uncovers a bygone love story between the Gull and the Rolling Stone.

 

The girl introduces herself to the guest as the “Princess Nazik.” The mother is displeased, because her daughter is mixing with the painter. And the girl is interested in the painter, she always follows him, observes him. Aiday enters Emil’s room secretly. There she sees an unfinished painting: there are stones, boulders, a cliff, on which a majestic Gull sits, ready to take wing. The girl sees a great number of sketches, among which she pays attention to several drawings, depicting gulls. She watches attentively, then runs to her place. She tries to find something quickly. Finally she does it. This is an old drawing, which her mother protectively keeps in her photo album. Gulls are depicted on the drawing.

 

Aiday and Emil are sitting on the verge of the pier. As before, he is drawing gulls. An important conversation takes place:

    - Where is your home?

    - I have no home. I’m a Rolling Stone. This is when you have no home of yours, you live wherever you happen to.

    - You are so big, and don’t have your own home.

    - Constancy, affection is what depresses me. Solitude is the best state for an artist.

 

There are sketches of Emil and Aiday. He teaches her to draw. There’s a shot of tremendous beauty, on the level of the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni: the grey-turquoise tranquil, mirror-like surface of the lake, the grey-golden sand, a painter’s case, which stays a bit to the right from the centre of the frame, drawing Emil and Aiday, to whom he is explaining his artistic images.

 

Aiday watches Emil working frequently.

     - Probably, I would not be able to draw so alike!

     - Why so? You’ll succeed. You just have to try hard.

The painter gives a lead pencil to the girl as a gift:

     - It is a magic one. Everything comes to life with this pencil. And all the dreams come true.

Immediately he sets a task for his pupil:

     - Draw these disobedient birds, and then I’ll choose the most suitable among them and will finish my damned painting at last.

Once, in a weak moment of creative depression the artist confesses to the girl:

     - My gull can’t fly up.

 

One morning Aiday runs in Emil’s room and finds emptiness there. Only sheets of paper with sketches of gulls on them are scattered everywhere. The girl runs out into the open space in the hope of finding Emil, but he’s nowhere to be found. She runs to the cliff – and sobbing, for the first time in her life pronounces the word “Dad.” Then she calls her father more confidently: “Dad, daddy!”

 

Aiday comes up to the cliff, climbs it, takes her magic pencil out and draws the gull. In stupefaction she walks away from the cliff, but accidentally turning round, she sees that her gull comes to life and stands up. In another heartbeat, the Gull is already flying along the deep blue surface of the lake. The bird is gaining height confidently. Now it’s higher and above the clouds. The theme of the forgotten song about the bygone relationship of Emil and Rumia is sounding. But this time the melody sounds in a new key – elated, exultant, and triumphant.