One of the five ‘-stan' countries of Central Asia's legendary Silk Road (along with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan), Kazakhstan is ethnically and culturally diverse, with Kazakhs representing the largest ethnic group ahead of the Russian population. A variety of religious beliefs coexist in the country, with Islam as the primary religion followed by Orthodox Christianity. A country of vast terrains, including deserts, snow-capped mountains, deltas, steppes, and rock canyons, Kazakhstan is ranked the ninth largest country in the world. As the world's largest landlocked country, its territory surpasses that of the whole of Western Europe.

The ‘-stan' countries have shared for several centuries the Islamic religious culture that took root in the seventh century alongside various nomadic cultures. Together, they share a complex history. Occupied by Imperial Russia in the mid-nineteenth century, the region was incorporated into the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik revolution in 1919. After the Soviet collapse, the region separated into independent states in 1991.

It is said that Central Asian Cinema began under the Soviet occupation. During World War II, the Soviet Union's three major film studios (Kiev, Leningrad, and Moscow) relocated to Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, along with over 3,000 cineastes, and the United Central Film Studio was founded. It was in Almaty that Sergei Eisenstein completed his great epic Ivan Groznyi. Young Central Asian filmmakers gained valuable knowledge from such Russian film masters, as well as mixing with Kazakh writers Mukhtar Auezov, Abdilda Tazhibaev, Gabit Musrepov, and Sabit Mukanov, establishing a centre of intense creativity.

During the 1950s, the Ministry of Culture sent students by train to apply for entry into the Moscow schools. On returning, they fostered a period of growth in the arts industries. The influence of these new VGIK (Moscow's prestigious film school) graduates, coupled with the end of Stalin's cultural repression, resulted in a transformation in Central Asian Cinema.

Despite the continuation of Soviet oppression, a deep cultural awakening occurred during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with Central Asian filmmakers sensitive to the notions of a local national identity. In the 1960s, movies such as Shaken Aimanov's The Land of the Fathers, Abdullah Karsakbayev's My Name is Kozha, and Mazhit Begalin's Steps Leading Across the Horizon raised the question of a Kazakh national identity. These works, despite Soviet ideological control, succeeded both commercially and artistically and laid the foundation for the creation of a national cinema.

Despite the training of filmmakers in the Soviet school of cinema (VGIK), it was in Almaty that the spirit of the Kazakh ‘New Wave' was born. Taking on the influence of Western cinema, Kazakh filmmakers were successfully portraying the places where they were born, where they grew up; they were playing and experimenting, and at the end of the 1980s they had a new hero in rock superstar Viktor Choi. The Needle (1988), directed by Rashid Nugmanov and starring Viktor Choi as Moro, a young man dealing with a drug-addicted girlfriend, epitomised this new era of post-Soviet cinema. There was a rejection of Soviet imagery, and in the desire for a wholely new indigenous imagery, an entirely new Kazakh cinema emerged. Filmmakers of the ‘New Wave' dominated during the 1990s with films by Serik Aprymov, Darezhan Omirbayev, and Karakulov representing an emerging Kazakh cinema of auteurs.

Now in the twenty-first century, after the great social and political changes of the previous century, the Kazakh film industry has prospered from strong political and economic stability, producing the majority of films from the ‘-stan' countries. Kazakhstan has become the main centre of filmmaking, as well as co-producing films with European partners. The Kazakhfilm Studio, Eurasia Film Productions, and the Eurasia International Film Festival are the industry's main players.

In 2008, Kazakhstan received its first-ever Oscar nomination for the epic Genghis Khan biography Mongol, directed by Sergei Bodrov. Kazakhstan was the first Central Asian country to be nominated in the history of the awards.

At the prestigious thirteenth Pusan International Film Festival of 2008, Kazakh producer Gulnara Sarsenova was awarded Asian Filmmaker of the Year, becoming its first female recipient. Sarsenova has been widely credited for her contribution to the building of the Central Asian film industry since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Eurasia Film Production, a production house set up by Sarsenova in 2004, has become the harvesting centre for international co-productions in the region.

Kazakh films feted and awarded at international film festivals include The Killer (1988), Little Men (2003), Shiza (2004), Nomad (2005), Karoy (2007), Swift (2007), Native Dancer (2008), Tulpan (2008), Together My Father (2008), and Songs from the Southern Seas (2008).

Nomad, Mongol, and Tulpan were released theatrically in a number of Western countries in 2007, 2008, and 2009 respectively. Tulpan won the Un Certain Regard Prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and Best Feature Film at the 2008 Asia Pacific Screen Awards, as well as major awards at film festivals in Karlovy Vary and Tokyo. Songs from the Southern Seas and Together My Father are in official competition in the third annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

Last year's St.George Bank BIFF brought you Zhanna Issabayeva's directorial début, Karoy. This year, St.George Bank BIFF brings you Songs from the Southern Seas, written and directed by Kyrgyz cinema's Marat Sarulu (In Spe [1993], Mandala [1999], My Brother, Silk Road [2001]). The complex history of the ‘-stan' countries is well evidenced in this wonderfully moving film screening during the festival on  Saturday 8 August. It shows the uncertainty, psychological trauma, and displacement caused by several centuries of confusion and dislike between ethnic groups.

This profound film explores the clash of cultures and religions within a multi-ethnic community. Central characters search for peace as they struggle to reconcile the past and their cultural heritage with contemporary realities while striving to allay the prejudices of today.

(This article acknowledges as its source the following readings from 2008's CENTRAL ASIAN CINEMA - Discovery: ‘Central Asian Cinema' by AN Cha Flubacher-Rhim, ‘Opening of Central Asian Identity Through Films' by Gulnara Abikeyeva, ‘Demythologizing and Reconstructing National Space in the Kazakh "New Wave"' by Bauyrzhan Nogerbek, and ‘Central Asian Cinema: Nationalism, Dislocation, Independence' by Michael Rouland.)

By Maxine Williamson