In this unique investigation of psychology and a country’s reorientation, Omirbaev cast Tajik filmmaker Djamshed Usmonov as a director struggling with his mother’s death in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. A story that starts in Astana and moves across the country, as Amir takes a road trip to his family home, it explores the radical divide between the cities and countryside in the post- Soviet space. Amir, an uncompromising man, has taken strides away from the Kazakh traditions of his youth and into a world deeply influenced by Russian language art and philosophy. On the surface he is an unscrupulous and unaffected individual, but Omirbaev’s deeply personal work utilises the tension between the outer world and Amir’s subconscious to display the deep seated effects of cultural shifts.
Please note the screening link will be available from midday Tues 2 July to Tues 28 July 2020. This screening is a Film Feels Connected event. Please fill out this survey after watching. Thank you for your time.
Darejan Omirbaev (Kazakhstan)
Director
Darejan Omirbaev is a Kazakh director, and a proponent of the Kazakh new wave. He was born in 1958, in the then Soviet Union. Meeting with enormous critical success his releases have been sporadic throughout his career. An auteur, who pulls from his own life for inspiration, his films are deeply personal affairs that investigate the personal and even subconscious of his characters. His second feature film, Kardiograma (1995), a black and white tale of first love and obsession screened in Venice and won the UNESCO Prize. He draws greatly from Russian literature, Tueur a Gages (1998) was based on Tolstoy’s The Forged Coupon and won the Prize Un certain Regard at Cannes. Most recently, Omirbaev made an adaptation of Dostoevsky’s seminal Crime and Punishment, set in modern day Kazakhstan.
Klassiki programming is supported by funds from the BFI Film Audience Network (FAN) which is made possible by the National Lottery. Klassiki screenings are also part of Film FeelsConnected, a UK-wide cinema season, supported by the National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network. You can explore all films and events at filmfeels.co.uk #BFIFAN #ThanksToYou #TNLUK #FilmFeels #FilmFeelsConnected
