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Waves, Old and New, In Kazakh Cinema

Most of the Kazakh short-length entries avoid the fairer sex. When they do portray women, as in The Thief, that representation is skewed by the hero’s point of view. These same films also avoid the ‘national’ theme of recent ethnographic, traditional cinema from the older film-makers, i.e. the grand, full-length features mentioned above with their Dolby sound, panoramic ethno-landscapes or scenes of ancestral village life. When questioned about the absence of this ‘national theme’, Erzhanov adamantly asserted that because his ‘bloc’ grew up in the city, he wanted to make a film that reflects an existence both he and his peers ‘know inside out. That’s a plan we’ll be sticking to.’ This text is excerpted and adapted from the publication in KinoKultura, 24 (April 2009); all quotations are from post-screening discussions at Eurasia IFF 2008, unless indicated otherwise an all emphases are added.