Kuat Shildebaev

A staggering historical epic about the intrigue and turmoil of the East Asian civilization of Otrar, before its systematic destruction at the hands of Genghis Khan.

Somewhere in the endless steppes of Central Asia lies a treasure. Frenchman Charles holds the key, a fragment of an ancient map. But in his restless quest, Charles seeks neither fame nor glory, but for a way to heal his wounded soul. He's looking for love. Ulzhan felt it the first time she laid eyes on him.

Chouga is a beautiful, rich and beloved young woman. She is thirty and lives in Astana, the Kazak new capital. She is married to a famous scientist in his sixties and has a seven-year-old son. Her brother and sister-in-law live in Almaty. The couple is tearing apart and Chouga’s brother requests her to come and try to bring them back together. There she meets Ablaï, a rich and idle young man whom she strongly feels attracted to. Once back to Astana, Chouga tries to withstand this sensual attraction about which she has a premonition of a tragic outcome.

The stranger is John, an American visiting Kazakhstan as part of an exchange programme for "medical expertise". He meets the local people who lead a free and simple life. With his new friends, John will live through a series of adventures. He spends four very strange days with a friend and colleague. Back at his hotel, John hears that his friend has died in mysterious circumstances, but people say he had in fact been dead for several days.

Tanabay is a proud Kazakh war hero and loyal Communist who is pressured into taking a position as a herdsman in a collective farm in the Stalinist era after WWII. The pride and joy of the collective is a beautiful stallion named Gulsary. After Gulsary wins a race, the new commissar of the collective lays claim to the beloved and headstrong horse, which leads to a battle of a wills. Tanabay and Gulsary are both punished and separated for their refusal to bend to the rules of the Stalinist era.

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.

The traditional conflict between the daughter-in-law and the daughter-in-law is resolved in the expressive manner of a poetics-symbolic cinema and a philosophical parable.

A blind old man lives in a lost way station. He intuitively determines the condition of the railway tracks, which are monitored by his son. Every month, a track meter equipped with state-of-the-art technology passes through the stop, but its readings differ from what the old man feels about the road. The son finds himself in a dilemma: which to trust more — his father's intuition or the indications of the computer? After all, the lives of hundreds of passengers depend on the right decision.