Anna Katchko

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.

In Almaty, a cash-strapped couple hatch a plan to solve their money troubles, but soon become embroiled in a toxic web of social media, violent criminality and spiralling greed.

A gang of crooks robbing cash collectors, run into a police surveillance team and the inadequate police response results in a gunfight. A TV crew on assignment in the area happens to capture this humiliation on camera, and this example of police incompetence is soon the lead story in every news bulletin. Public confidence in law and order now suffers irreparable harm. The head of the Moscow force welcomes a public search-and-destroy operation against these thugs, the brainchild of Katya, his PR director. She proposes that the capture of this dangerous gang be transformed into a live TV show of a kind never seen before. At this point she cannot know that the gang leader's life-and-death struggle with the police is destined to lead to a media duel. Besieged in a huge apartment block, the crooks hold hostage a father and his son and daughter. A massive special forces rescue operation is mounted but fails miserably.

Late 1970s. Dinmukhamed Kunaev brings together seven Kazakhs — criminals and homeless youths — and entrusts them with a secret mission against the Soviet regime. Their goal is to stop nuclear weapons testing at the Semipalatinsk Test Site, which threatens humanity.

Medea is an intelligent, highly educated woman who gives up on her dreams when she falls for rich businessman Alexei. When the pair have two children, she patiently waits for him to divorce his wife, and as he decides to emigrate from Russia to Israel, she meekly follows him. But when he shuns her for having committed a crime to protect him, her blind love turns into burning rage.

Zai, a bride-to-be in present-day Dhaka, is in love with her groom and dreams of a fairytale wedding, but secretly struggles with her body’s resistance to wedding rituals. As stress and emotional pain intensify, a mysterious woman with long hair begins appearing in Novera’s imagination.

An unprecedented terrorist attack takes place in a peaceful café in the center of Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, on a nice Saturday afternoon. The terrorists use religion to divide and to kill people, while the surviving hostages, all of them also Muslims, try to defend their own humanistic values. The film unravels the clashes and contradictions of religion, ideology, and civilizations through a terror drama shot in a single take.

We are in the year 2001, a temporary ceasefire brings a much-needed break to a small war-torn village in Northern Nepal, bringing much joy among the residents. Prakash and Kiran, two young close friends, are also starting to feel the change in the air. Though they are divided by caste and social creed, they remain inseparable, and start raising a hen given to Prakash by his sister, with hopes to save money by selling her eggs. However, the hen goes missing. To find it, they embark on a journey, innocently unaware of the tyranny brought by the fragile ceasefire.