Seker

Don't Cry

The story of a Chinese-trained opera singer living in a remote Kazakh village with her grandmother and her ailing young niece. The bulk of the action consists of the steadfast heroine trying to make enough money to get the rare and costly medicine that may save her niece's life. What makes the film so thrilling is that this elemental situation allows the director and his cast of non-actors to illuminate the details of everyday life: reality and fiction dissolve into each other, and the audience achieves a heightened awareness of simple activities like the cooking of a meal, teaching a child to count in Chinese and English, visits to the doctor or the marketplace. Entirely improvised by the filmmaker and his actors.

The Last Stop

A young man comes home to his Kazakh village after finishing up his stint in the Soviet Army. All that he finds are his old friends drinking, senselessly carousing, tumbling into one violent brawl after another.

Cardiogram

A 12-year-old boy from the isolated steppes in Kazakhstan has first encounter with the outside world when he is sent to a children's clinic with a treatable heart condition. It is here that he gets his first taste of the pain and pleasure of love when he falls for a kindly young nurse. His crush becomes a bit of an obsession, he spies on her frequently and experiences his first moments of sexual awakening. Also at the institution everyone speaks Russian and soon Jasulan will face exclusion in his own country.

Three Brothers

"Three brothers live in a small village somewhere in Kazakhstan. Nearby is the small station, where an elderly man, who has had the nickname Klein since he was in a concentration camp in the Second World War, rules the roost. ... The children ask inquisitively about the nature of his activities, as nothing seems to happen. He tells them that he supplies a local military base with material. Klein starts telling them different stories, for instance about the beautiful lake where the officers spend their spare time and where life is as beautiful as the women. The picture he sketches of this lake is so attractive to the three brothers and their friends that they resolve to go there. They know from the old man that it will cost money, because life is dear. Tri brata is not a children's film, but a fairy-tale about today's world with its military aircraft on one side and an elderly man with his railway material on the other." - IFFR

Shanghai

People of an old abandoned neighborhood are waiting for the end of their district and a whole Soviet Union as well.

Revenge

A "Romeo & Juliet"-type tale of forbidden loves on the steppes of Kazakhstan. Yershora, a maiden from the Adai clan, instantly falls in love with Zhemal from the neighboring Zhaumit clan. The lover's happiness lasts for one night. When morning comes, Zhemal's clan finds the two together. In the course of clan revenge, Zhemal is subjected to torture and Yershora loses her memory.

Nomad: The Warrior

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.

Surzhekey: Angel of Death

Story of a small Kazakh community in the 1930s terrorized by a Red Army soldier whose task it is to force them to collectivize and to eliminate “kulaks.”

Aksuat

A Kazakh villager has to take care of his pregnant sister-in-law after his brother is thrown in jail.

Kazakh Khanate: Diamond Sword

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.

Peshawar Waltz

During the Russian war with Afghanistan in the 1980s, journalist Charlie Palmer and medic Victor Davis arrive at a P.O.W. camp near the Afghanistan/Pakistan border in order to document the sub-human conditions which the prisoners are forced to endure. During their visit, the prisoners seize control of the camp and begin to enact a series of terrible and bloody punishments on their captors. Held as hostages, Palmer and Davis are forced to witness acts of barbarity unlike any they have ever seen before.

Goodbye, Gulsary!

Tanabay is a proud Kazakh war hero and loyal Communist who is pressured into taking a position as a herdsman in a collective farm in the Stalinist era after WWII. The pride and joy of the collective is a beautiful stallion named Gulsary. After Gulsary wins a race, the new commissar of the collective lays claim to the beloved and headstrong horse, which leads to a battle of a wills. Tanabay and Gulsary are both punished and separated for their refusal to bend to the rules of the Stalinist era.

Roots

Left without parents, having gone through hardships and hardships, Kasym ends up in a boarding school, where he learns true friendship and becomes a marksman. Growing up, he falls in love, goes through exploits and betrayal during the Great Patriotic War. A "thread" from the past helps him to keep a person in himself, which connects him with the roots of the family and the values of his ancestors.

Returnee

The family of repatriate Saparkul return to their historic homeland: cross the border post «Turkmenistan», enter the courtyard of the migration police, pass registration and other formalities - hand on his heart, listen to the anthem of Kazakhstan, wipe the tears of surging emotion, even the wife removes her veil. It is home to free women ... Then the road to the south of the country - to the station Tore-Tam. They will live there.

Evacuation

The film focuses on the evacuation of people from the regions of the USSR at risk of Nazi occupation to the eastern parts of the country. At the time Kazakhstan received around 1.5 million people and it is still the home for many of them. Two protagonists – Natalia and her daughter Galya – move east with the rest of the evacuees. In the chaos at one of the railway stations, Natalia loses sight of her daughter and goes to look for her in Almaty, which is overcrowded with evacuees.

Track

Life turns out to be much simpler and more down-to-earth than we think about it.