Tales from the Road | Exploring Kyrgyzstan & Uzbekistan

Once Upon a Time in Tashkent

Pokser TV short-film

Kirgistan - Hochgebirgsland voller Schätze

Uzbek Madonna

Documentary highlighting clips and providing historical context to surviving silent films from Uzbekistan.

Jayuk

A 20-minute documentary film about the Kyrgyz people living by the Narym River.

The Devil's Bridge

Life in a Kyrgyz aul (village) in the mountains connected to the rest of the world by a cable bridge, and the teenage boys who are constructing the rope of the bridge. A rope bridge which the locals call “The devil’s bridge” forms part of each and every event which takes place in a small village lost in the mountains of the Kyrgyz Republic. A platform driven by a huge winch which they have to pull with their own strength to cross the torrent is their only link with the outside world. But the director of the documentary wondered something else: “Does this bridge unite or does it actually separate?” Through the mist and over the thrashing waters, the inhabitants of the area glide along their ropes. A film, in the director’s own words, about ordinary people who live in an extraordinary place.

Grandmother of Russian Feminism

Portrait of a typical European feminist - Olga Lipovskaya (1954-2021), journalist, translator, poet, founder of the women's non-profit organization St. Petersburg Center for Gender Issues (an educational and resource center for women and women's organizations), editor of the samizdat magazine Women's Reading.

Neither live nor die in Tashkent

Chronicles of the cultural life of Tashkent (2007 – 2015). From the murder of Mark Weil to the wedding of Alisher Usmanov. Tashkent Biennale, apartment buildings, video art festival, conversations about nothing, amateur performances and operational shooting, advertising and much more. Tashkent, which no longer exists, just as these people are no longer in it.

To Live and to Die in Samarkand

Having gone to Samarkand in search of traces of colonial culture, of which there were quite a few left there, having carefully photographed them, we suddenly discovered that it was not the dead buildings that were much more interesting, but the living carriers of this very colonial culture. The result is a film about people who live on the ruins of an empire.

Live and live in Fergana

About Russians living in Fergana, why they are not going to leave and what they see as the meaning of their presence on the land of Turkestan

Wings of Kyrgyzstan

As „wings of men“ they became the faithful companion of a great nomadic nation thousands of years ago. Today, 28 years after the Soviet occupation, the little horse is an essential part of the cultural heritage and the search for identity of the modern Kyrgyz people. Based on its own story, a so called „good brown horse“ leads through the film and offers an insight of what it could mean to be „todays wings of men“. Told by a horse’s voice and through its eyes, this short film still is a documentary, but also a poetic journey to a nomadic culture.

Castles in the Sand

One of the highest achievements of the new wave of Kirghiz cinema, which emerged in the mid-1960s. This story of a boy building sandcastles on the shores of the Issyk-Kul Lake becomes a documentary parable on the tensions between an artist and society.

We're Going the Same Way

At the non-places of this world lie the struggles of nobodies, to improve, overcome and survive. Their struggles suffocate them, they forget to live. They dislocate them, bring them together and pull them apart. Father and son share simple dreams and a lifetime on the road. Along an unromantic Silk Route they try to make some come true. Searching for a more livable future they break apart. As working class heroes they accept their fate. The film examines the added value of honesty in our actions.

Misha

The tragic story of the greatest soccer player the most have never heard of.

Tashkent: The End of an Era

Tashkent: The End of an Era reconstructs the complex history of Tashkent by means of archive footage which has never been shown before and the testimonies of its inhabitants.

Leica – A Century of Vision

LEICA - A CENTURY OF VISION shows how the invention of the 35mm format revolutionized documentary photography. Featuring legendary and contemporary photographers the film reveals the camera's enduring power to capture history as it unfolds.

Kyrgyzstan

An audiovisual letter that connects an imagined Kyrgyzstan with the filmmaker’s inner world, blending personal illness, memory, and political echoes into a poetic reflection on distance and belonging.

Spending life at high altitude: Kyrgyz highlanders in the centuries long struggle with harsh environment

The film story follows the international group of researchers who are performing the scientific expedition in a remote high altitude Kyrgyz village named Sary Mogol.

Abu Raykhan Biruni

A biographical film about one of the greatest Medieval scientists and scholars, Al-Biruni.

I Lit the Fire!

The plot of the movie brings two people together - an immigrant filmmaker from Belarus and a 10 years old girl from the village in the south of Kyrgyzstan.

The Road From Karakol

In the summer of 2011, mountaineer Kyle Dempster traveled the back roads of Kyrgyzstan on his bike. His goal: cross the country using old Soviet roads while climbing as many of the region's impressive peaks as possible. He was alone. He carried only a minimal ration of climbing gear. Ten Kyrgyz words complete its vocabulary. Part meditation on the true spirit of adventure and part epic travelogue, The Road from Karakol is the story of a unique spirit who cycled to the end of the road and decided to keep going.