The Cinematheque

“The Soviet Union is your father and mother,” proclaims a Bolshevik officer to console an orphaned teen in Without Fear (1972), one of the films featured in this program. The full measure of this falsehood is plain: although Central Asian nations were neither orphaned nor childlike, the Soviet Union imposed new identities on them, forbidding ways of the past.

How should an individual come to terms with such an overbearing presence? Resist or take the path of acceptance? Settle for the alluring benefits of the latter—namely, promises of comfort and a better life—or attempt to preserve a sense of self? This program of three Soviet-era films from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan was organized around such questions to spotlight the decision to carve one’s own path amid outside interference.

For the characters onscreen, these stories trace historical hardships during monumental periods of Soviet life—from women caught between ideologies in the early Soviet rule (Without Fear) and a teenager navigating the realities of war (Early Cranes, 1980) to a disenchanted couple searching for a place to call home on the eve of the regime’s collapse (The Touch, 1989).

For the artists behind the camera, these films are attempts to preserve Central Asian cultural identity by artfully sifting it through the filters of censorship, observing narrative devices, visual techniques, and Aesopian language to obfuscate the unsanctioned.

For Vancouver audiences, watching these rarely screened works is an opportunity to witness individuals chart the ever-changing waves of social and political power. This program is a testament to the sensitive yet persistent pursuit of self-determination that continues to shape our lives today.

Programmed by Dastan Ryskulov of Tolkun Films, a project bringing Central Asian cinema to international audiences.