20.09 FRI | 20:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Dilnaz Abraimova
Country: Kazakhstan
Type: documentary
Year: 2023
Duration: 17’
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English, Uzbek
The story is about a 20-year-old girl, her mother and a secret that destroyed their illusory world in an instant. A story that is revealed after a period of deep, desperate silence and speaks to each family individually. The film acts as a kind of guide — you do not need to be silent if you have been hurt or you feel scared.
14.09 SAT | 20:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Arsenii Aksenov
Country: Kazakhstan
Type: experimental
Year: 2024
Duration: 10’
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English, Uzbek
Ust-Kamenogorsk is an industrial and quiet city in the east of Kazakhstan. The author was born in Ust-Kamenogorsk but after living there for 4 years he left and since then, occasionally visiting the city, he has not been able to form his own image of it. Now he is putting it together piece by piece with the help of amateur YouTube videos while reflecting on his only direct connection with the city — breathing.
18/09 WED | 21:00 | moc hub
Director: Bekzhan Amantayev
Country: Kazakhstan
Type: fiction
Year: 2024
Duration: 10’
Language: Kazakh
Subtitles: English, Russian
After surviving a terrible tragedy in his childhood, Arlan returns to the place where it all began. Children have been disappearing in the area, and a mysterious old man with knowledge of another world lives on the scene. To understand the reason for the pattern of disappearing children, Arlan must face his fears face to face.
17.09 TUE | Greek Cultural Center| 19:00
Director: Alternativa Teen Lab
Country: Kyrgyzstan
Type: experimental
Year: 2023
Duration: 15’
Language: Kyrgyz
Subtitles: English, Russian
The film is based on documentation of dreams of ‘Alternativa Teen Lab’ in Bishkek participants. A dream is like it’s about you, but not entirely. That’s why talking about dreams isn’t as scary as talking about yourself. It’s not so scary to share your strangest, most intimate dreams with each other, to show them to strangers. But, in reality, there is so much of us in these dreams. What we fear; our culture; our hopes and experiences. Talking to each other, creating images for these dreams allowed us to become very close. We realized that inside each of us lives an entire universe. We would like to invite viewers to touch it, so that this film resembles a poem or a dream itself, where a completely different, unfamiliar logic operates compared to ordinary life.
19.09 THU | 19:00 | Greek Cultural Center
Director: Zhandos Dzholdoshov
Country: Kyrgyzstan
Type: fiction
Year: 2024
Duration: 30’
Language: Kyrgyz
Subtitles: English, Russian
In a distant mountain village there is a funeral of an old man, Meken. His brother and nephew call his grandson, Kelechek, to attend his funeral, since Meken’s son is in America. With the grandson’s arrival, everyone realizes this was not such a good idea.
14.09 SAT | 18:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Sherzod Nazarov, Adkhamjon Abdurakhmonov
Country: Uzbekistan
Type: documentary
Year: 2024
Duration: 20’
Language: Uzbek
Subtitles: English, Russian
Fayzullo (79 y.o.), Mardon (73 y.o.) and Hamrokul (83 y.o.) are close friends. Until this age, they have traveled by bicycle to all 11 regions of Uzbekistan, except for the Khorezm region and the Republic of Karakalpakstan. They were set to tour again in early 2021. Unfortunately, the pandemic began and this dream did not come true. Two years later – in 2023 – they got another chance to make it happen.
14.09 SAT | 20:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Rusudan Khubutiya
Country: Uzbekistan
Type: experimental
Year: 2024
Duration: 19’
Language: Georgian
Subtitles: English, Russian
A poetic audio-visual journey about searching yourself and your place in the world through images from dreams and the subconscious mind. Dancing hands against the backdrop of a city, a tangled rope stretched across an empty street, bare feet walking on black soil. Is there a connection to roots when you are so far away in space and time, when you are born in another country and you are the result of mixing other peoples’ culture, when your parents didn’t escape to a foreign country because of war and hunger. What is the relationship with roots?
14.09 SAT | 18:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Intizor Otaniyozova
Country: Kazakhstan
Type: documentary
Year: 2023
Duration: 25’
Language: Russian, Uyghur
Subtitles: English, Russian
Spring day in Almaty. Uyghur women gathered at a cafe in Sultan-Qorgan to compete in preparing traditional dishes. It is difficult for the jury, because they understand the importance of their mission. Food, dress, dance, language, song — everything needs to be preserved and not forgotten. For collective memory, it doesn’t matter whether the memory actually happened. Let Shakespeare’s tragedies be staged in theaters, but in the Qorgan cafe everyone’s heart is already burned. Friendship of peoples as an eternal state of limbo.
If atygyan tea is served, it means the end is near.
20.09 FRI | 20:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Yana Xarasho
Country: Uzbekistan
Type: documentary
Year: 2024
Duration: 20’
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English, Uzbek
Galya is a documentary film that explores the theme of memory through the prism of one grandmother’s life filmed over the course of decades using various media from old video cameras to modern mobile gadgets.
Galya is not only a record of time but also a declaration of love. Each new episode of the film represents a particular year and stage in the life of the protagonist, which becomes an important artifact of personal history. The movie shows how the perception of time and memory changes when we look at life through the lens of a camera. The mix of filming styles — from grainy VHS to crisp HD — creates an atmosphere that reflects changes in technology and in the life of the grandmother herself. Through interviews set against a backdrop of shifting events and memories from different periods of her life, along with archival footage the movie creates a multi-layered portrait of the heroine.
19.09 THU | 19:00 | Greek Cultural Center
Director: Daniar Abdykerimov, Zhumanazar Koichubekov
Country: Kyrgyzstan
Type: documentary
Year: 2022
Duration: 18’
Language: Kyrgyz
Subtitles: English, Russian
This story is about a little girl named Fatima, who lives far away in the mountains and rides to school on her donkey for more than an hour every day. She is the youngest of three children in her family.
Her family has been living in the area for about 20 years. They are not the only residents: after the collapse of the USSR, the barns were handed over to local livestock farmers. Now about 30 people, including children, live in the four barns. According to the residents, after the electric poles were dismantled in 1998, living conditions worsened. Since then people have been living without lighting.
At home, Fatima has a solar-powered lamp. It shines dimly and goes out quickly in cloudy weather. On days like this, she studies her lessons by candlelight.
14.09 SAT | 18:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Camila Djavarova
Country: Uzbekistan
Type: documentary
Year: 2024
Duration: 12’
Language: Japanese, English, Russian
Subtitles: Russian, Uzbek
Observation of a Japanese man living in Uzbekistan for 15 years with no knowledge of local languages.
15.09 SUN | 18:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Rusudan Khubutiya
Country: Uzbekistan
Type: documentary
Year: 2023
Duration: 24’
Language: Russian, Uzbek
Subtitles: English
This film is about a teenager who is in the 11th grade of school and it is her last year at school. Salima still does not know what to choose for her future and what to do. All her doubts and thoughts lead to her room where she feels safe.
20.09 FRI | 22:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Flyin Up & Andrey Kornienko
Country: Uzbekistan
Type: experimental
Year: 2024
Duration: 64’
The film is a visual representation of the music band Flyin Up’s album of the same name. It describes the recurring path of human consciousness. From the first steps of spiritual formation, where it faces the “hell” of vices and generally sees the world in black and white, to the realization of unity with the Universe in the Buddhist sense and the postulates of Zen, which, still, do not release a person from problems of life, and restart the cycle of struggle of consciousness with reality.
14.09 SAT | 20:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Aiganym Mukhamejan
Country: Kazakhstan
Type: experimental
Year: 2023
Duration: 12’
Language: Kazakh
Subtitles: English
19.09 THU | 21:00 | Greek Cultural Center
Director: Asel Zhuraeva
Country: Kyrgyzstan
Type: documentary
Year: 2023
Duration: 57’
Language: Kyrgyz, Russian
Subtitles: English, Russian
This Film is about girls and women who waved the Kyrgyz flag, sang the national anthem and made a great contribution to the sport of Kyrgyzstan, bringing Kyrgyzstan to the 5th place in the world in wrestling.
It is described that girls can fight stereotypes that have developed in society and achieve many heights, competing on an equal footing with men.
15.09 SUN | 18:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Aizhan Kassymbek
Country: Kazakhstan
Type: fiction
Year: 2022
Duration: 18’
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English, Uzbek
Going through a vulnerable teenage period and parents’ divorce, Camila’s naive world is falling apart. Trying to manage with her new reality and uncontrollable desires, she decides to escape to a quiet place with her friend Raushan. There she hopes to find a little love that she desperately needs.
15.09 SUN | 20:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Malika Mukhamedjan
Country: Kazakhstan
Type: fiction
Year: 2024
Duration: 116’
Language: Kazakh, Russian, English
Subtitles: Russian, English
Karlygash lives with her husband and father-in-law on a horse farm lost in the Kazakh steppe. Karlygash is a stranger to everyone here, while Ilyas has not quite forgotten his first love for a girl named Ayna. One day is not different from another, but everything changes with the arrival of a foreigner — a French photographer, Louis, who went on a trip after breaking up with his wife.
13.09 FRI | 20:00 | Tashkent Film School (OPENING)
Director: Sasha Kulak, Michael Borodin
Country: Uzbekistan
Type: documentary
Year: 2023
Duration: 20’
Language: Uzbek, Russian
Subtitles: English
Mirtemir is growing up in Nukus, a dusty city caught between the desert and the dead Aral Sea. His mother has moved away to earn money in a neighboring country, and Tima lives with his blind grandmother. He waits tables at a fast-food joint during the day and entertains people at a mobile karaoke by night.
Days full of hard work and responsibility, too demanding even for an adult, are nonetheless full of joy and adolescent bliss.
20.09 FRI | 20:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Saltanat Ismanova
Country: Kyrgyzstan
Type: documentary
Year: 2024
Duration: 11’
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English, Uzbek
The story of the film develops chronologically, beginning with the author’s childhood. Throughout the film, the audience follows the author as she delves into her old writings, revealing every page of the diary, permeated with suffering and inner struggles, while at the same time we see her happy childhood filmed by her father.
She relives over and over again all the feelings that were hidden deep inside. The entire film takes place within the four walls of the author’s room, which symbolize her inner world and isolation. The audience learns about the author’s relationship with herself, her journey through her own world, and her exploration of the past to find understanding.
14.09 SAT | 22:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Almira Saifullina
Country: Kazakhstan
Type: documentary
Year: 2024
Duration: 65’
Language: Uzbek
Subtitles: Russian, English
Set in the ancient town of Bukhara in Uzbekistan, the film turns off the tourist streets and jumps into the life of a young souvenir seller Behzod. Being raised in a highly patriarchal society of Bukhara, at a moment he surrenders his carefree youth and takes on the mantle of adulthood in obedience to local rules. Together with his bride he goes through a traditional wedding ceremony and deeply rooted initiation rites to finally become a head of the new family. But does the chosen path make those young really happy?
15.09 SUN | 18:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Saadat Sataeva
Country: Kyrgyzstan
Type: fiction
Year: 2024
Duration: 7’
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English, Uzbek
Ex football player Kyial tells a story of her first romance with Football, the game. She tells her feelings looking at the camera, about what it was to date with “her” (football). She tells all the difficulties she had to go through and all the good moments between them, which happen in all first relationships.
16.09 MON | 19:00 | moc hub
Director: Shokhsanam Norm
Country: Uzbekistan
Type: documentary
Year: 2023
Duration: 22’
Language: Uzbek
Subtitles: English, Russian
Sardor is at the very specific moment of his life. He does not know how to please his parents’ expectations and follow his path at the same time, however he continues singing his songs.
14.09 SAT | 20:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Adele bilyalova, Akerke Damenova, Nurtas Sissekenov, Yerzhan Uskenbay, Aina Zhekebatyr, Altyn Mustafina
Country: Kazakhstan
Type: experimental
Year: 2024
Duration: 3’
Language: silent
Can you imagine the rivers meet? What would they talk about if they could meet?
The project “POV: you are river“ is a virtual meeting of rivers in Kazakhstan. These rivers have never crossed, or maybe their paths have crossed on the expanses of the country in a different form. We can’t say that with certainty, nor can we say what they might be talking about.
Rivers flow freely, knowing no boundaries or laws. In seeking to subdue and control them, we forget that our visible power is negligible compared to the power of nature.
Do we have the right to speak on behalf of rivers? Are we capable of understanding them? What can we learn from rivers? How does globalization affect nature, and how does nature affect globalization?
14.09 SAT | 20:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Munisa Kholkhujaeva
Country: Uzbekistan
Type: experimental
Year: 2024
Duration: 9’
Language: Uzbek
Subtitles: English, Russian
A pressure of a traditional society on women is portrayed through a ghost-like
presence of a young woman, who seems helpless but at the same time full of
resistance. Filmed in four locations of Tashkent, where filmmaker has grown up and
still experiences destabilizing pressure, we engage to the question what it is to be
“normal” in the traditional culture.
20.09 FRI | 20:00 | Tashkent Film School
Director: Chaya Moshayev
Country: Uzbekistan, Israel
Type: fiction
Year: 2023
Duration: 14’
Language: Hebrew, Russian
Subtitles: English
Ella and Edik, brothers of a traditional Bukhari family in Israel, arrive early on holiday to their childhood home. There they find their homophobic father – dead and dressed in women’s clothes.
16.09 MON | 19:00 | moc hub
Director: Adinay Syrgataeva
Country: Kyrgyzstan
Type: fiction
Year: 2024
Duration: 15’
Language: Kyrgyz, Russian
Subtitles: English, Russian
A story about a difficult relationship between a father and son who face reticence, lack of support and understanding. Abay is a former serviceman who lost his job and became an alcoholic. His son Aman dreams of becoming an outstanding artist and entering the University of his dreams. When the boy gets an opportunity to go after his dream, the father realizes that he may lose his only son and spend the rest of his days alone. Will they be able to regain the trust and understanding that was lost?
16.09 MON | 19:00 | moc hub
Director: Leyla Rakhmatullaeva
Country: Uzbekistan
Type: documentary
Year: 2024
Duration: 9’
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English, Uzbek
Rakhmatullaev Anvar Abrorovich is the first people’s sculptor of Uzbekistan and a multiple awards winner. He is 88 years old, almost blind, but continues to make sculptures. The film is about his love for work, overcoming the insurmountable difficulties of life.
18/09 WED | 21:00 | moc hub
Director: Alibi Mukushev
Country: Kazakhstan
Type: experimental
Year: 2023
Duration: 20’
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English, Uzbek
In a post-apocalyptic world that has undergone global cooling, several wars and the sum total of all that civilization has come to in its decline, where there is nothing but scorched earth and burnt or frozen corpses, a match comes to life! A match that seeks a living person, because its main purpose and raison d’être is to warm someone and burn itself.
17.09 TUE | Greek Cultural Center | 19:00
Director: Sezimai Mairambek kyzy, Uuljan Zainidinova
Country: Kyrgyzstan
Type: fiction
Year: 2023
Duration: 20’
Language: Kyrgyz
Subtitles: English, Russian
The day in the small village of Kyzyl-Korgon passes quietly as 18-year-old Akylai rushes to school. Since childhood, she has dreamed of freedom, of the big city. The news catches her right at the doorstep. Her parents announce that everything has already been decided: matchmakers will come for Akylai, her parents have already chosen a groom for her. Life is supposed to change in a second, but on the night before the wedding, an event will occur that will forever change the life of the entire family.
18/09 WED | 21:00 | moc hub
Director: Assem Sultanova
Country: Kazakhstan
Type: experimental
Year: 2024
Duration: 16’
Language: silent
Due to the short dry season, farmers In the Qostanay region need ripened grain to be harvested as soon as possible. Both machines and people go out harvest grain on the night shift.
17.09 TUE | Greek Cultural Center| 19:00
Director: Seiit Ryskulov, Elnura Zhigitalieva
Country: Kyrgyzstan
Type: fiction
Year: 2023
Duration: 22’
Language: Kyrgyz
Subtitles: English, Russian
A tiny Kyrgyz village. New Year’s Eve. 15-year-old Zhakshylyk comes home from boarding school for the holidays to his grandfather. His father is in prison, his mother is working abroad, and his grandfather is the only close relative the boy has around. The boy gets into serious trouble at school. Now, through awkward conversations and silence, the grandfather needs to figure out what happened to his grandson and how to help him.
