MOTHER'S PARADISE

A small community in a bleak, sparse Kazakh landscape. The local factories shut down long ago, but the railway line still represents a link to another, perhaps better, world. Children write down their secret wishes and leave the notes on the tracks. The brothers Amir and Serekbay, for instance, who live in poverty with their mother and grandfather. The boys have not seen their father since he went to work in Russia many years ago; some photographs have survived, distant memories of fleeting happiness. When funds run low, their grandfather sells household objects to the neighbours. Their mother says little, suffers in silence, lives for her two boys. Her own body is all she has left to sell. When the sons discover her secret, they are deeply disturbed. But worse is to come. Like in the two earlier prizewinning films THE ADOPTED SON and THE CHIMP, children whose world comes unhinged play the main role in the latest work by Aktan Arym Kubat (also known as Aktan Abdykalykov). The screenplay was written by Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.