Juliya Levitskaya

During a medical examination, 13-year-old Aslan is humiliated in front of a load of his fellow pupils. The incident unleashes his latent personality disorder. Plagued by self-doubt, he strives for cleanliness and perfection and is obsessed with trying to control everything around him. His compulsion draws Aslan, who lives with his grandmother in a village in Kazakhstan, into increasingly difficult situations. He abhors the way most of his fellow pupils are held in the sway of a criminal scheme, in which Bolat, one of Aslan’s tormentors, is also involved. Bolat blackmails the younger children into paying him protection money; he has nothing but contempt for ostracised Aslan.

In 1990 Kazakhstan, Alexander’s family receives an acceptance letter to Germany, but his son Georg marries Russian Lena, who becomes pregnant. They move to Germany, facing harsh conditions in a reception camp. Their honeymoon is spent in a gymnasium with other late repatriates. Georg struggles, while Lena, a former Komsomol member, faces fatal consequences in the market economy.

The 30-year-old Iskander is a food-photographer who, due to his own indecision, experiences a crisis both in his work and in his sexual relation with his colleague and beloved Laura. He wants to change his situation by completing a promising project for a popular fast food chain. Because of a «red level of terrorist threat» in the city, while he’s working he ends up locked in a fast food with a random customer, Anat. The two have sex, then Iskander backs out, but Anat finds a way to get satisfaction. She teaches him not to be afraid of mistakes. Iskander gains self-confidence and shows his courage in his job and in sex with Laura, who finally gives him her respect and love.

This film is a gratitude to the Kazakh Koreans, Germans, Turks, Chechens, Kurds and other peoples of this land and the Kazakh people, who met them with due attention and sympathy, despite their incredible difficulties after the jute of the 30s. For these peoples, our country has become a real Homeland.