Ongoing: Central Asian Cinema
a twice-monthly film series continues Tuesdays and Saturdays, twice monthly. This series of 10 feature films, subtitled in English, will be shown one per week, two weeks during each month, each film generally shown on a Tuesday and then repeated on the following Saturday. Film viewing will be preceded by a short introduction and followed by a discussion period. Asian Cultural Center of Vermont presents a twice-monthly film series at the C.X. Silver Gallery. The films are emblematic of five Central Asian Republics, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Each republic is represented by two feature length films. For each republic, there is a film made during the Soviet times and another made since independence in the 1990s. Now there is the companion collection of documentary films from each of the five republics and including films from the 1960s to the 1990s. To promote awareness about Central Asia world-wide, The Arts and Culture Network Program of Open Society Institute (OSI) has commissioned Central Asian Cinema Expert Gulnara Abikeyeva to bring together this collection. These films are shown with the permission of OSI. The cover art for the feature film set showing a compelling image of hands-as-film focusing on an eye, was created by Ilya Rudoplavov. See below for specific films.These films are offered to the public free of any admission charge. Any donations received will help to offset expenses of programs and events offered by the Cultural Center. Central Asian Cinema series in Brattleboro hosted by the Asian Cultural Center of Vermont
Asian Cultural Center of Vermont presents: DAUGHTER-IN-LAW, a film from Turkmenistan. (75 minutes, 1963.) Film showing is Saturday, July (date to be arranged) at 5 pm at 814 Western Avenue in West Brattleboro. This film is for general audiences. Shown by permission of Open Society Institute, there is no admission fee; donations welcomed to help with Cultural Center event expenses. There is only one showing for this film this month. An old goat and sheep herder and his daughter in law breed lambs in an isolated part of the desert with rarely a visitor. She lives with images in her mind of her husband, awaits his return from the battlefront, and hopes he is still alive. Gulnara Abikeyeva our Central Asian film expert describes: “The war has taken her husband. And this dream – to sing a song at the baby’s cradle – is carried out to the culmination of the film.” One of the heroes of the film is “an always awaited child” who “will never appear.” The film moves in the rhythms and landscape of traditional Turkmen lifestyle, opening with old man buried in the hot sand up to his neck to treat his rheumatism. Later they dry melons for winter, and take in newborn lambs. This film has won prizes at many film festivals. Turkmenistan film, Daughter-in-Law
Asian Cultural Center of Vermont presents: LITTLE ANGEL, MAKE ME HAPPY, a film from Turkmenistan. (88 minutes, 1993.) Film showing is Tuesday, July XX at 6 pm (date to be arranged) at 814 Western Avenue in West Brattleboro. This film is for general audiences. During World War II in Turkmenia, the deportation of Soviet citizens of German origins begins; adults are sent to concentration camps, children to orphanages. Six-year-old Georg hides from the Red Army Soldiers in his now-abandoned village, has to bury an adult relative, figure out how to care for a sick child, and, through this world turned upside down, he keeps his belief in Little Angel that he has heard from a children’s song. The story touches on one of the most complex of problems: what is the Motherland? Gulnara Abikeyeva our Central Asian film expert considers this film to be one of the top ten for her of all time. Shown by permission of Open Society Institute, there is no admission fee; donations welcomed to help with Cultural Center programming and event expenses. Turkmenistan film, Little Angel Make Me Happy
Asian Cultural Center of Vermont presents: YOU ARE NOT AN ORPHAN, a film from Uzbekistan. (75 minutes, 1963.) Film showing is Tuesday, August xx, 2010, at 6 pm (date to be arranged) at 814 Western Avenue in West Brattleboro. This film is for general audiences. This remarkable and touching film produced during the Soviet era, and based on true events during World War II, describes the family of a blacksmith couple who take in fourteen children while their own son is away at the battlefront. These children of different ages and nationalities learn to live together. When the son returns from the Front with yet another child, and from the country of the enemy army, even this child is welcomed into the family. Shown by permission of Open Society Institute, there is no admission fee; donations welcomed to help with Cultural Center programming and event expenses.

Please note that the ACCVT/OSI Central Asian Cinema series resumes this month in West Brattleboro, Vermont. Uzbek film, “You Are Not An Orphan”
Asian Cultural Center of Vermont presents: THE ORATOR, a film from Uzbekistan. (90 minutes, 1998.) Film showing is Saturday, August xx, 2010, at 5 pm (date to be arranged) at 814 Western Avenue in West Brattleboro. Parental guidance is suggested. Set during the 1930s, The Orator, is a historical drama, told as a fairy tale, of Iskander and his four wives moving through a regime change in which women are ordered to throw away their veils.During the fim, Iskander moves from poverty to affluence to acclaim to ostracism. Shown by permission of Open Society Institute, there is no admission fee; donations welcomed to help with Cultural Center programming and event expenses. Uzbek film, “The Orator”
Asian Cultural Center of Vermont presents: BESHKEMPIR, a film from Kyrgyzstan by Aktan Abdykalykov (77 minutes, 1998, subtitles.) Film showing is Tuesday, September XX, 2010, at 6pm at 814 Western Avenue in West Brattleboro. (date to be determined) Beshkempir traces the life of a young teen boy in the Kyrgyz countryside. The film opens with an adoption ceremony of the boy as a baby by the village elder women. We then see him as a young teen with his peers, and with his step parents, and then the closing with the funeral of his beloved grandmother. Parental guidance is suggested with scenes not appropriate for younger children of sexualized activity and some swearing. Shown by permission of Open Society Institute, there is no admission fee; donations welcomed to help with Cultural Center programming and event expenses.
Kyrgyz film, “Beshkempir”
Asian Cultural Center of Vermont presents:
THE WHITE MOUNTAINS,
a film from Kyrgyzstan
by Melis Ubukeev (62 minutes, 1998, subtitles) Film showing is Saturday, September xx, 2010, at 5 pm at 814 Western Avenue in West Brattleboro. (date to be determined) In White Mountains, subtitled “Difficult Crossing,” Mukash is chased by officials, learns of the devastation of war from a blind woman and helps her daughter to freedom beyond the river crossing, he, having to choose a tragic solution. This film has some swearing and a plotline for ages 10 and up. Shown by permission of Open Society Institute, there is no admission fee; donations welcomed to help with Cultural Center programming and event expenses. There is only one showing this month for this film.
The White Mountains, a film from Kyrgyzstan shown with thanks to Open Society Institute
Asian Cultural Center of Vermont presents
HASAN – ARBAKESH
a film from Tajikistan
(1965, 91 minutes)
Tuesday Oct. XX, at 5 pm
Shown by permission of Open Society Institute, there is no admission fee; donations welcomed to help with Cultural Center programming and event expenses. Date to be arranged. HASAN – ARBAKESH a film from Tajikistan is about Hasan, with his cart and horse, who journeys in the name of his beloved Saodat, hoping to earn enough to marry his sweetheart. After courageous exploits, with the world is changing around them, with trucks taking the place of the horse and cart, the heroic couple, alas, cannot ultimately be together. A charming but sad movie, with subtitles, with sung Tajik folk tunes now and then. This film is shown by permission of Open Society Institute, with no admission fee; donations to Asian Cultural Center of Vermont (ACCVT) are appreciated.
A film still from Hasan Arbakesh of Tajikistan

Asian Cultural Center of Vermont presents
KOSH BA KOSH
a film from Tajikistan
(1993, 98 minutes).
Tuesday, Oct.XX at 6:30 pm. Shown by permission of Open Society Institute, there is no admission fee; donations welcomed to help with Cultural Center programming and event expenses. Date to be arranged.
The opening caption of KOSH BA KOSH dedicates this film “to all women we love.” This romance, set against a backdrop of civil war, first in the city, then in the mountains, living by a funicular railway. After a father loses his daughter to a young man in a game of dice, the two young people grow to love each other. By the end, she must bury her father who has been caught in the crossfire of the civil war. Gulnara Abikeyeva explains further: “Kosh Ba Kosh” is a term that refers to disputable situation in the ancient Tajik dice game and it means “let’s play it again.”
* Please note: This film event is now on a date different than previously scheduled.
Tajikistan film, “Kosh Ba Kosh”
Asian Cultural Center of Vermont presents: THE LAND OF THE FATHERS, a film from Kazakhstan by Shaken Aimanov (85 minutes, 1966.) Film showing is Tuesday, June XX at 6 pm at 814 Western Avenue in West Brattleboro. (date to be determined) The Land of the Fathers, shows the heartwarming odyssey of a boy and his grandfather to recover the remains of the boy’s father in the aftermath of World War II. There is a meeting of different worldviews within the Kazakh and Soviet society of the time, the atheist scientific view of life and the devout Muslim view come to light in dialogue while people talk on the train journey. This is for general audiences with one scene of an amorous adult couple. Click here for a Word document version of a flyer for these Kazakh film events.

Kazakh film, The Land of the Fathers
Asian Cultural Center of Vermont presents: AKSUAT, a film from Kazakhstan by Serik Aprimov (80 minutes, 1997.) Film showing is Saturday, June XX at 5 pm at 814 Western Avenue in West Brattleboro. (Date to be determined.) Aksuat, a tragic farce, shows a grim look at the changing modern times in relation to a traditional Kazakh village and the plight of two brothers, one who stays in the village and the other who becomes a social outcast in the city.

Aksuat is the name of a real village where Writer/Producer/
Director Serik Aprymov lived as a child. This film depicts the real Kazakh village without movie studios or stage sets. Gulnara Abikeyeva described the experience of this film through Aman, the brother that stayed behind in the village: “The film has an amazing rhythm – unhurried and reserved, just like the character of Aman. At the same time the film doesn’t have anything unnecessary; all elements add important information to the whole picture of the film. Behind this reserved appearance, an incredible energy pulses – of course, the humans’ lives are broken!” There is also “the visceral and heartbreaking musical score” and “the deserted almost moon-like surface” of the landscape. … If Serik Aprimov says something with a straight face, it means that a trick is somewhere about. His films are the same way. He sees funny things and paradoxes in everything. But behind this ironic smile there are deep feelings and a true love of his people.” Adult situations mean that this film is not for children.