::: CENTRAL ASIA: REDEFINING ITS CULTURAL ROOTS :::

 

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Central Asian cinemas

drew attention of the film world when a new vitality was

observed, particularly, in Kazakhstan, whose capital at the

time, Alma Ata (presently called Almaty) was already the

largest film centre of the USSR after Moscow, Leningrad (St.

Petersburg of today) and Kiev. Central Asian cinema was

already developed in the 1940’s; but under the constraints

of the Communist regime, it did not have much chance to

flourish. From the time cinema was nationalized in 1919 by

a Lenin decree, film production and distribution was

regulated by a government institution, the State Committee

for Cinematography (Goskino), which gradually gained

control, only to be dismantled with the arrival of

perestroika

,

which

opened new horizons for young filmmakers who

were mostly trained in VGIK (the all-Union State Institute

of Cinematography) in Moscow and shared the same

concerns and difficulties despite the diversity of their

backgrounds. They shared a common film language and a

sociological and psychological approach in treatment of

characters as well as in reflecting their destabilized cultural

roots. Subject matters were diverse; but fashionable themes

of the period such as the purging of the Stalinist past, sex

and violence in youth sub-cultures, or obscure avant-garde

narratives were deliberately avoided. Natural décor night

shots in public places, courtyards, abandoned roads-and

non-professional actors, were favoured. Native language

was employed instead of Russian as was the case earlier.