The Cinematheque

“[A] ferocious masterpiece … Khamraev’s bravura talent isolates just the right gestures, merging the physical, the visual, and the dramatic with perfect precision.”

Kent Jones, Film Comment

Ali Khamraev, one of the most prominent Uzbek directors, forged his career not only through his artistic talent but also his ability to handle the adversities of censorship. In Without Fear, he approaches an especially delicate subject. Set in a 1930s Uzbek village during the Soviets’ attempt to ​“unveil the women of the East,” the film portrays the women caught in the ideological crossfire: traditions and faith versus prospects of equality. When a teenager aligns herself with the latter and publicly burns her paranja, she reveals the incongruity of such a leap. Khamraev’s achievement lies in addressing emancipation without giving censors the satisfaction of easy catharsis. Instead, he offers context. Moving carefully through the story, he treats the complex question of ​“progress” with the nuance it demands, illuminating the endogenous nature of freedom—one that cannot be imposed from outside.

In Uzbek and Russian with English subtitles

DCP courtesy of Eye Filmmuseum

Preceded by a video introduction from director Ali Khamraev.

“Ali Khamraev’s films are poems, with dark pauses between scenes operating like blinks of the eyes of God, like seconds of mercy given and withdrawn.”

Fanny Howe, American poet and novelist