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Amir Karakulov

Amir Karakulov

Directing

Biography

Amir Bulatovich Karakulov (Kazakh: Амир Булатович Каракулов; 11 September 1965; Alma Ata) is a Soviet and Kazakh director and screenwriter. He is the only Kazakh director who has received Tiger Award (won the 26th Rotterdam Film Festival) for film "Last Holiday" (1996). He studied at the University of Kazakhstan, worked there for two years in the journalism department and then studied for three years at the Moscow film academy VGIK. His feature debut "Woman Between Two Brothers" was given the Fipresci Prize at the Moscow Film Festival.

Known For

The Stray White and the Speckled
5.5

In a poor provincial town, the ragamuffin boys are frenziedly drilled for combat, and at nights the local elite, gathered in a pool room, boasts of fictitious biographies, while bands of boys amuse themselves with bloody fights on trashy vacant plots… One of the most vivid staples of the postwar childhood were pigeons. They could be bought, sold or stolen. One day a beautiful white dove appeared over the town. Risking his life, Ivan caught the White. And immediately became the target of the "pigeon" mafia…

The Stray White and the Speckled

1986
Unreal Love
1.0

A successful careerist is in the love triangle between her shy colleague and high-profile boss. Thinking that she can't get involved with married men anymore Elya tries online dating and falls in love with some mysterious dude in the Internet.

Unreal Love

2012
Last Holiday
5.5

May Day in Alma Ata, 1979. Valera, Karim and Jacob are a crew of hard-partying, drug-taking teenagers looking for kicks during their spring holiday, and they break into the bar at the Highland ice rink and steal an electric guitar. When Valera's dad finds the guitar, he turns his son over to the police, who brutalize him and leave him severely wounded on the outskirts of town. Karim and Jacob kill Valera's father, then hide their friend and do their best to keep him alive.

Last Holiday

1996
Don't Cry
9.0

The story of a Chinese-trained opera singer living in a remote Kazakh village with her grandmother and her ailing young niece. The bulk of the action consists of the steadfast heroine trying to make enough money to get the rare and costly medicine that may save her niece's life. What makes the film so thrilling is that this elemental situation allows the director and his cast of non-actors to illuminate the details of everyday life: reality and fiction dissolve into each other, and the audience achieves a heightened awareness of simple activities like the cooking of a meal, teaching a child to count in Chinese and English, visits to the doctor or the marketplace. Entirely improvised by the filmmaker and his actors.

Don't Cry

2002
The Dove's Bell-ringer
5.0

A tale of star-crossed lovers set on the lonesome plains of Kazakhstan.

The Dove's Bell-ringer

1994
Woman Between Two Brothers
6.0

A tragic conflict between two brothers. The younger Adil falls in love with the girl that the elder Rustem loves. Elya reciprocates Adil...

Woman Between Two Brothers

1991
No image
10.0

Anthology film by the group of young Kazakh filmmakers trained by Sergey Solovyov. Includes novels about love-driven suicide attempt, tank division and a summer camp for children. Was never finished.

And We Will Save the Love

1987
Red trousers
N/A

A young woman gathers around her several women who have suffered from domestic violence. Their distinctive feature becomes the red trousers they wear, in which they secretly track down their abusers and intricately take revenge on them for the suffering they caused.

Red trousers

2025
No image
N/A

How difficult it is for a person to find his true face, his own "I." The protagonist of the film is Karim, a person of a poetic leaning, who, finding himself with a friend at a half-abandoned radon mine, begins with despair to feel that the life he had led in the city is pushing him to the brink of suicide. This thought is heard in his verses. The days spent at the springs, with surrounding nature, sharply change his mood. He is at a crossroads. How his fate will unravel is anyone's guess.

Leaves

1989
Due to Insignificance
N/A

The old man’s last wish – to fulfill the Kazakh tradition and put his grandson on a stallion – is shattered by everyday life, bureaucracy and loneliness, remaining unfulfilled. The music of Johann Bach on the dombra emphasizes pain and hope.

Due to Insignificance

2022