Tag: Kazakhstan

A mercenary known by the codename ‘Moor’ returns from the war to the big city to rescue his younger brother’s wife and son from her husband’s debts – premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

Found by the authorities, who apprehend him by a perimeter fence and remove his bag of home-made weaponry which includes a wooden bow and arrows and a knife carved from bone, which he will get back and make use of later in the plot, Moor is processed alongside wounded and traumatised veterans. He speaks few words and is in complete control of his faculties. The chief of police, who talks in a confident, jokey manner and insists on addressing him as Bro, feels more like a gangster than a cop, wearing a snakeskin jacket not unlike the hero of Wild at Heart (David Lynch, 1990) and often accompanied by a small entourage who read as gangsters rather than cops, even though the group occasionally expands to contain officers with the word POLICE on the back of their jackets.

He explains that Moor’s younger brother Houdini has disappeared, leaving behind him not only a mountain of debt but also a wife and small son.… Read the rest

Tags 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Critics' Picks Competition, Adilkhan Yerzhanov, agency, Anna Starchenko, authorities, Berik Aitzhanov, bow and arrows, Bro, brother, brother’s wife, cardboard boxes, carved from bone, chief of police, city, codename, cold blood, cop, cops and robbers, Critics' Picks Competition, debt, debt collector, France, gangster, hiding, Kazakhstan, knife, mercenary, modelling, modelling shoot, Moor, mothers and sons, numeric rhymes, payments, photography, PÖFF, PÖFF 2024, PÖFF 2024: Critics' Picks Competition, PÖFF 28, PÖFF 28: Critics' Picks Competition, PÖFF: Critics' Picks Competition, point-blank, rescue, return, siblings, sleaze, snakeskin jacket, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2024, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2024: Critics' Picks Competition, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Critics' Picks Competition, trauma, veteran, war veteran, weaponry, wooden, working off a debt, wound, Zhandos Aibasov

Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies Top Ten

Top Ten Movies
(and more)
2023

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 5 January 2024
1 Comment on Top Ten Movies
(and more)
2023
Sticky post

Work in progress – subject to change. Because I am still watching movies released in 2023, so it’s always possible that a new title could usurp the number one in due course. Before that, I have a lot more movies still to add / sort.

All films received either a theatrical or an online release in the UK between 01/01/23 and 31/12/23.

This version includes re-releases, but those aren’t numbered. It’s hard to imagine movies improving on Powell and Pressburger’s i know where i’m going or The Red Shoes, Powell’s Peeping Tom or Von Trier’s Melancholia.

In addition to re-releases, this version also includes films seen in festivals which haven’t had any other UK release in 2023.

The star ratings may occasionally differ from the star rating I gave a particular film at the time of review.

Beyond the first 25 numbered titles, there may be numerous errors (missing links to reviews where I wrote one, year of release, country, and maybe more). All this will be fixed in time, but I wanted to get something online in the holidays.

Finally, last year’s list is here.

Top Ten Movies (and more) 2023

Please click on titles to see reviews. (Links yet to be added.)… Read the rest

Tags 2023, Albania, Annecy, Australia, Bhutan, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Focus, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, JPF Touring Programme, Kazakhstan, LEAFF, LFF, Lithuania, LKFF, Morocco, Nepal, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Philippines, PÖFF, Poland, premiere, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tibet, Top Ten Movies, UK, Ukraine, US, world premiere

Features Live Action Movies

The Land
Where Winds
Stood Still
(Zhel Toqtaghan Zher)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 16 November 2023
No Comments on The Land
Where Winds
Stood Still
(Zhel Toqtaghan Zher)
Sticky post

Director – Ardak Amirkulov – 2023 – Kazakhstan – Cert. none – 108m

*****

A Kazakh mother made homeless by Soviet policy must protect her two sons in the harsh environment of the Steppes – premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition at the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

An historical, period, survival movie. In the wake of the Russian Revolution, Soviet forced collectivisation polices, intended to have a levelling effect, instead forced Kazakh peasants off the land and led to the famine of the early 1930s. People were reduced to eating livestock essential for agricultural production, not to mention each other.

In a barren Steppes landscape loosely reminiscent of the Spaghetti Western, mother Jupar and her two pre-teenage sons Jolan and Boshay must survive mounted gunmen, starvation, extreme weather, wolves, and hungry fellow human beings. Jupar carries a concealed knife within her clothing and will stop at nothing to protect her kids in one of the most powerful expressions of motherhood ever to grace the screen.

Their seeming nomadic existence is however not without purpose; she has to get them to the eponymous Land, the village where she was born, and safety. Yet the dangers they face on the way are legion.… Read the rest

Tags 1930s, agricultural production, Ardak Amirkulov, barren, cannibalism, cavalry, climate, collectivisation, danger, disenfranchised, eating livestock, Ersin Kalybaeva, extreme weather, family breakdown, famine, force, gruel, gunmen, home, homeless, hope, hunger, hungry, ill, illness, Kazakh, Kazakhstan, knife, land, landscape, levelling, Meirzhan Musakozha, mistrust, mother, motherhood, mothers and children, nomad, nomadic, peasants, PÖFF, PÖFF 2023, poison, policy, poverty, pre-teenage sons, prosperity, protect, Russian Revolution, Sagizbai Karabalin, Salikh Beisenbai, small children, social collapse, Soviet, spaghetti Western, starvation, Steppes, survival, Tallinn, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2023, village, well, wolves, Zhanar Shokpanova

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Sound Of Nomad:
Koryo Arirang

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 8 August 2021
No Comments on Sound Of Nomad:
Koryo Arirang

Director – Kim So-young (as Kim Jeong) – 2017 – South Korea – 87m

****

How an indigenous theatre company kept the culture of the Koryo people alive after they were deported by the Soviet authorities from Far East Russia to Kazakhstan in 1937 – in the documentary season: Korean Film Nights: In Transit presented by LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival

The Beijing Treaty (of 1860 although the date isn’t mentioned) ceded to Russia the so-called Maritime Province – an area of land stretching down to Vladivostock. The territory bordered on the Northwestern tip of Choson (Joseon), today’s Korea, and Chosons stated migrating into the Maritime Province, calling themselves the Koryo people. In late 1937, the Soviet authorities decided that the Koryos could potentially be Japanese spies and deported them in boarded up trains to Ushtobei, Kazakhstan, Central Asia.

The journey took two days and many children died, their corpses thrown unceremoniously out of the train at night. After the journey, the deportees faced a harsh winter, the eventual death toll rising to 40 000.

This story has been documented in Korea, but little else about the Koryos has. The first Kazakhstan Koryo settlement in Ushtobei is today marked by a memorial.… Read the rest

Tags 1930s, 1937, actress, adoption, alcohol, alcohol dependency, alcoholic, alcoholism, Almaty, ankles, Arirang, Arirang Ensemble Of Koryo, audience, Beijing Treaty 1860, Central Asia, Choi Tatiana, Choson, Chun Hyang, corpses, COVID-19, cultural traditions, culture, death toll, deportation, drunk, farm workers, history, in transit, janggu, Joseon, Kazakhstan, Khazakhstan, Korea, Koryo, Koryo people, Koryo Theatre, Kyzylorda, Lee Hamdeok, life, LKFF, LKFF 2021, London Korean Film Festival, London Korean Film Festival 2021, loss, Maritime Province, memorial, mothers and daughters, orphan, pandemic, Park Maya, people’s actress, performance, plays, projection, rail, rice fields, Russia, shooting, singer, songs, South Korea, Soviet, Soviet Union, spies, suicide, Tashkent, tragedy, train, trilogy, Ushtobei, Uzbekistan, Vladivostock, walk, Winter, workers