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Kenenbai Kozhabekov

Kenenbai Kozhabekov

Acting

Biography

He was born on March 3, 1928, in the village of Aksengir. He graduated from the acting department of the Almaty Theater and Arts College in 1950. In 1949, he made his film debut with the role of the Chukchi Ayye in the movie Alitet Leaves for the Mountains, directed by Mark Donskoy. Donskoy had also selected other future prominent actors, including Nurmukhan Zhanturin (who played the role of Tumatughe) and Gulfayrus Ismailova. From 1950 to 1967, he performed on the stage of the Kazakh Theater for Young Audiences (Kazakh TЮZ). From 1958, he was an actor at the Kazakhfilm studio, where a documentary film about him, The Return of Kenenbay, was made in 1975. In the late 1960s, during a fight with bandits, he sustained a severe injury and became disabled. For the rest of his life, Kozhabekov was confined to a wheelchair, but he continued to act, mainly in episodic roles and those where walking was not required. The film The Wolf's Pit highlighted his acting skills, even though he was confined to a wheelchair.

Known For

We Are From Semirechye

Near the city of Verny, surrounded by Cossack patrols, the paths of three friends diverge. Instead of his native aul, Nartai finds only ruins. The death of his mother, the disappearance of his fiancée, and the oppression from the stanitsa ataman — all this forces Nartai to join the revolutionary struggle. Hunger and poverty, and pleas for bread greet the blacksmith Azim in his native Zhetysu. A Cossack horse kills Azim’s little son with a kick of its hoof when the boy reaches for scattered grains of bread. Grief turns the blacksmith into the leader of a starving, rebellious crowd. The fate of the third soldier is not easy either. Pavel Zernov, pausing only briefly at the bedside of his dying little son, hastens to rejoin his comrades who have gone underground.

We Are From Semirechye

1959Movie