The Decisive Step

Don Zakhar arrives in Turkmenistan to reunite with his fiancée Guiouzel after World War II

The film unfolds on two parallel planes. Scenes depicting the tense, uneasy routine of the border where the young protagonist Ata serves are interwoven with the less dangerous, yet still emotionally charged episodes from the life of the beautiful young Leila, his fiancée, who remains faithful to him despite receiving a proposal from a very successful young graduate student.

Musician and Scientist from the Soviet Russia goes to Türkmenistan to explore and learn about Turkmen National Music. Whilst drifitng through the desert and writing down the music he learns, he comes the across the son of the legend: Karkara.

The film is based on K. Kuliev's novel "Magtymguly". A story about a Turkmen spiritual leader, philosophical poet, Sufi and traveller who wrote under the pen name Pyragy (Feraghi) and is considered to be the most famous figure in Turkmen literary history. After graduating from the Khiva Madrasa, the poet Pyragy (Feraghi) Magtymguly returns to his native Turkmen aul. He teaches children, composes poems, loves a beautiful girl and is loved by her. But local bey Cherkez-khan does not like the poet's calls to unite Turkmens, and his soldiers burn the village. Khan appoints the captured Magtymguly his court poet but, having received a refusal, the tyrant orders to kill the poet. But the guard helps the poet to escape. Having returned to the burnt aul, Magtymguly begins to call on Turkmens to unite with Russia, because they could not deal with their troubles alone.

The action takes place in February 1937 in Turkmenistan near the Soviet–Afghan border. A detachment of Basmachi fighters must cover a saboteur’s crossing into Soviet territory…

A screen adaptation of the play of the same name by G. Mukhtarov and K. Seytliyev. It tells the story of a shepherd’s son who becomes a renowned surgeon.